Fireflies
by Electric Current
Summary: Katie never suspected that she might be a demigod, until now. Strange things are happening, and one night she appears out of no where on the boundaries of a camp that isn't supposed to exist outside of her imagination. Who knows where it could go from there. Yes, this is Katie from Mortal Adventures. DISCLAIMER: I'm not Uncle Rick. You know this already.
1. My Life is Weird

My past few days had been pretty weird, and I didn't think that they could get any weirder. Unfortunately, the universe likes proving me wrong. Two days ago, my little brother was being as annoying as possible (nothing new there) and just would not leave me alone! This went on for about twenty minutes, and I was about ready to blow. I got so mad, and I opened my mouth to tell him to go away for the millionth time, but the words didn't get a chance to come out before a huge lightning bolt flashed through the sky. My brother's pretty scared of thunder storms, so he ran off to find Mom.  
The next day, I was walking into my science class like I usually did after lunch, and I noticed there was a substitute. Usually Mr. Davis tells us if he knows he's going to be gone, so I suspected that he was just sick or something. I sat down in my seat and got my things ready for the lesson. The substitute had a really weird last name that no one in the class could really pronounce, and she didn't write it on the board, so we all just called her "Ma'am." She passed out the work sheets that we had to do, which were pretty boring, by the way, and everybody started filling them out. Then when she started calling on people for the answers, I raised my hand. The substitute just gave me a death glare that pretty much said, "If you even think of talking, I will rip you to shreds and feed you to my dog." I was called on anyway, and I gave my answer.

"Incorrect." That one word was pretty horrible in my mind. I'm extremely nerdy, and if I get anything less than and A- on an assignment, I freak out. Then she called on Madeline, Queen of the Brats, who gave the exact same answer that I did. According to ma'am, who I had no other name for, Madeline was correct and I was not. So the class finished going through the answers, and the substitute handed out a stupid pretest for us to do. We were all told to be quiet while we worked. Madeline kept talking to her friend, and didn't get in trouble at all. However, when I whispered to my table partner, "I think the sub hates me," I was shouted at to shut up and get to work.

Then, when the sub turned around and started talking quietly on her cell phone, I noticed the strangest thing I had ever seen in my entire life. It could have just been my overactive imagination, but the substitute had a tail. A freaking _tail! _That's not normal! Nobody else seemed to notice it, even though it was pretty obvious. I looked away and kept working, but when I finished the pretest and stood up to turn it in, you-know-who was standing right there. How creepy is that?

"Miss Marentette," she spoke. Her voice was pretty loud, but nobody else seemed to notice that she was speaking. "I see you are finished."

"Um," I swallowed, "Yes, ma'am." She held out her hand, and I gave the pretest to her. She calmly flipped through the five pages of circled answers.

"Do it again." she ordered.

"What?!"

"I said, do it again. This is poor work."

"But this is just a pretest! No one here knows any of this stuff, and it's not even graded. It's just so that in the end we can take the actual test and see how much we've learned." I was pretty sure that she knew what the point of a pretest was, but I explained it anyway.

"Do it again." She spoke the words, and I slid back into my seat. But when I turned back to the front page to start over, all of my answers had disappeared. I inwardly groaned and worked through it again.

That night, after I had taken a shower and gotten into bed, I got an email. I didn't recognize the address, but I opened it anyway, being curious. It said, "You will face hard times in the future, my young Padiwan. Here is a gift. Use it well." That's seriously what it said. I had no idea why it referenced Star Wars, but oh well. Underneath it was a picture of a sword in the middle of a bunch of glitter.

_Ha ha, nice try Hannah, _I wrote, _You're not gonna creep me out this time._ My friend Hannah was always doing silly things and trying to scare me. Last time, she made a fake email and sent me a creepy email saying that a murderer was coming to get me and if I wanted to live then I'd have to give them $50. That time, she succeeded. This time, I wasn't going to fall for her tricks.

Almost right away, I got a response. See, you might think that this proved it was Hannah, but if you think that, then you're wrong. Hannah doesn't check her email often, and she never replied right away. _Ever._ Now, I was getting a little creeped out.

_This is not your friend. I am your enemy, and your worst nightmare. It would be wise to fear me, because running will do no good. No matter where you go, I will find you._

Okay, I'll be honest. This email thing was scaring the crap out of me. I made a stupid choice and replied anyway.

_If you're my enemy, then why did you call me your student and give me a sparkly present? That doesn't seem like a very nightmare-ish thing to do. Usually enemies don't warn each other of hard times._

__This time, there was no reply.


	2. Nightmares

I would to say that I slept like a baby that night, but I'd be lying. In reality, I rarely get a full night of sleep. Last night was especially bad. When I finally got to sleep at about 11:30, I had nightmares. Not that I don't usually get them, because I happen to have nightmares a lot, it's just that these ones were exceptionally bad.

In my dreams, I was being chased by a giant mob of spiders-yes, spiders, I'm terrified of them-in a dark forest full of monsters that looked like they were ready to eat me at any given moment. Fire shot from the shadows and singed the ends of my hair, nearly burning the rest of me as well. I just kept running and running from these huge spiders until I came to a river. I jumped into the river and was swept underwater by the strong current. My lungs felt like they were burning; I couldn't breathe. then the river pulled me to a giant waterfall, and I clutched at the rocks, but they were wet and my fingers slipped. I was falling, getting closer and closer to the rocks and churning water on the ground. Huge black clouds rolled over the sky, rumbling loudly like the roar of a fierce lion. Lightning shot all over, zapping everything in sight. The ground was getting even closer. Was it even possible to be falling this long? Suddenly, the water turned into a bright meadow filled with colorful flowers. The storm clouds disappeared, replaced by a bright blue sky with the sun shining above me.

The peaceful meadow didn't last long. All of the grass turned black, and the flowers became ghostly pale. The sun became blood red, and the sky was suddenly filled with ghosts, all screaming as if in pain. The ghosts floated closer, and I realized that their faces were smudged, faded like they were barely there. There were gaping holes where the mouths should have been, and black blobs instead of eyes. I heard the sound of fighting around me and saw thousands of warriors in full armor battling to the death. Every time a warrior died, he was replaced by one of the shrieking ghosts. Soon everything was gone except the ghosts and the red sun shining through their transparent skin. Their screams filled the air until I could think of nothing else. The noises filled my mind, and I curled into a ball on the ground, covering my ears and quaking with fear.

Suddenly, all was silent. I opened my eyes and realized that I was awake once more. I stood up and noticed that I wasn't in my room. I was at the edge of a forest.

* * *

I slowly took in my surroundings. To my left was a pine tree with a sleeping dragon wrapped around the trunk. That was pretty scary. Hanging in the branches was a shimmering piece of golden fabric.

"The Golden Fleece." I breathed. I had read a lot of Greek mythology and recognized the fabric almost immediately. Not quite believing what I was seeing, I pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Sure enough, I was wide awake. In front of me were a bunch of strawberry fields. At least that's what they looked like. I couldn't be completely sure, because it was really dark. Then I took a few steps forward and the scenery changed.

Now, I could see a farm house and a bunch of cabins in the shape of a Greek omega. In the distance, I could still see the strawberry fields. Where was I? I had no idea, but I was pretty freaked out. Then again, I couldn't think of anyone I knew who wouldn't be freaked out. Being my curious self, I started walking around. I strolled past the farm house, which was completely dark except for one window in what I assumed was the attic. Then I walked around the cabins, which were all pretty cool. A couple of them were just mini versions of the Greek temples. But other ones were pretty interesting. One looked like it had been brought up from the ocean floor. Another one was covered in flowers and plants. I shuddered at the sight of that one, remembering my dream. Even in the darkness, one of the cabins kind of glowed in a golden color. I saw one cabin that was pretty spooky. It was made entirely of what looked like obsidian, but I couldn't be completely sure, and kind of radiated death. Don't ask how I could feel that. I just could.

There were a lot of other ones. I admit, I looked in the windows of a couple. One of them was completely filled with sleeping people, and another was completely empty. _Why don't they just put people in the empty cabins?_ I wondered. That would make more sense, but it wasn't really my problem. Whatever.

I kept walking around, but all I saw were a few basketball courts and small arenas. There was also a place with a bunch of picnic tables. Each table was labeled, but I couldn't read them in the dark. Oh well. I sat down at one, because I was exhausted, and before I knew what was happening, I was asleep.


	3. A New Day, A New Life

**Dear Cjhoax: Sorry I haven't updated in a couple hours, I had writer's block. SO, I will try to write at least one chapter per day. I'll also try to write longer chapters, because I know what it's like to be a fast reader. This chapter is pretty much dedicated to you, because you're the only person who's following this story at the moment, and I don't really have anyone else to dedicate it to. Hope you like it!**

* * *

I woke up to whispering. When I opened my eyes, I looked around and immediately regretted falling asleep. Surrounding me were a bunch of kids in orange t-shirts that said "Camp Half-Blood" with a centaur underneath it.

"Um, hi?" I waved tentatively. Everyone was silent, except for a few kids in the back. Everyone's attention switched from me to the laughing kids, and back to me. Dang it! A girl with curly blond hair and stormy gray eyes stepped forward.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" the girl asked.

"My name's Katie. I-" I was interrupted. Upon hearing hoofbeats, everyone turned to face the centaur who was approaching the crowd. He walked forward and stopped in front of me.

"I assume you're what all the commotion is about?" he said.

"I-I don't know how I got here," I stammered, "I just... got here."

"Don't trust her Chiron, she's probably trying to attack the camp." came a voice from the crowd.

"Don't jump to conclusions, Clarisse." said the centaur, who I assumed was Chiron, "She may turn out to be your sister." That silenced the voice, but not me.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, "I don't have any sisters!" Bad decision. Everyone looked at me again.

"Follow me." Chiron ordered, and he walked away from the picnic table. I obviously followed, because what else was I supposed to do? For a little bit, we just kept walking. I followed him around the camp, seeing everything that I had looked at the previous night, just in the sunlight. We walked past the farm house, the cabins, and the arena, along with a few buildings I hadn't seen before. An occasional burst of smoke puffed out of the windows of one building. I heard the sound of working machinery coming from inside, so I guessed that was a work building of some kind. Chiron and I just walked in silence for a while, so I didn't notice at first when he spoke.

"Katie, have you ever heard of demigods?" he asked me. The truth was, I had. I nodded. Over the past month, I had read the Percy Jackson series, and I had recognized that I was at a demigod camp the second I saw the t-shirts. "Good." Chiron said, "So you realize that you are one?"

"Yup."

"Well, that makes you the only demigod I haven't had to give the lecture on the Greek gods and things." I smiled. "But I do have one question. How did you get here?"

"I told you, I don't know. It's the truth!"

"And I believe you. It's just a matter of time. We'll figure you out someday. Now, Katie, how old are you?"

"I turn twelve on July third." It was the last week of school, so I had about a month to go.

"Did you ever suspect you were a half-blood?"

I shook my head no. "Not until yesterday." Chiron looked at me expectantly. "I had a substitute teacher in science and she had a tail." That seemed to satisfy him. He kept asking me questions like "Do you live with both of your parents?" (No. I don't, because my parents have been divorced since I was four.) or "Which one of your parents do you not see often?" (My dad lives in New York. I live in Michigan. What do you think?) That's when I realized that I had somehow traveled halfway across the country overnight. Uh-oh. I wondered how my mom felt.

We walked back over by the cabins, where he dropped me off at the Hermes cabin. I didn't even have to walk in to know that this was the cabin that was full of people. Even with all of the demigods getting claimed before they turned thirteen, there were still a lot of unclaimed half-bloods. I was handed a backpack and a sleeping bag, then found a spot on the floor to put them. When I opened the backpack, I found my own camp t-shirt, a pair of shorts, a packet of ambrosia (I made a mental note not to open my backpack if I needed a midnight snack), a hair brush, a toothbrush, and an elephant pillow pet. No idea why there was a pillow pet, but it was there anyway.

I suddenly felt something lumpy in the back pocket of my new shorts. Sticking my hand in, I found a rainbow colored bouncy ball. I rolled in around in my hands, and it turned into a two foot long sword!

"WHOA!" I shouted, and accidentally dropped the sword. Of course, the hilt landed on my foot, and I started jumping on the other foot saying "Ow ow ow ow ow ow!" Oh, and if you're wondering, no, I did not care that I was still in my pajamas and hadn't brushed my hair yet. Lucky for me, there wasn't anyone else in the cabin except for a couple guys who just looked at me like they had no idea why I was in pain. Then they noticed the sword. One of the guys screamed (like a little girl) and backed up against the wall, bumping his head on the bunk in the process. Now we had two people in pain. The other guy just kept looking to the sword, then to me, then to the sword, and back to me again. It was pretty awkward after that.

Then the boys left, leaving me in an empty cabin. I quickly changed into my orange shirt and the shorts, hoping that no one would come in and see me half naked. Of course, the very second after I pulled on my shorts, the entire cabin burst in. Then I realized that I could have just gone to the bathroom. Oh well, silly me! I squeezed the handle of my sword and it turned back into the bouncy ball, then disappeared. Whatever.

About five minutes later, everybody went to lunch. I was starving. More like famished, but you know what I mean. I followed the crowd to the place with the picnic tables (I still have no idea what it was called) and read all of the table labels until I spotted the newbie table. But you'll never guess who I saw sitting there. I walked over, and sure enough, it was my friend Courtney. Her eyes widened when she saw me, but then we just started talking about Camp Half-Blood and stuff like that.

"So how did you get here?" I asked while chewing a bite of pizza (we had figured out the magic plate thing).

"Jenna and some kid named Nico came to my house and brought me here. Weird, right?" When she said that, I nearly choked.

"You mean that you actually met _Nico_? Like, Nico di Angelo?

"Uh... I guess. Why's it so important?" I was about to start freaking out when I remembered that she had no idea who he was. So I told her who he was and she seemed to understand.

After eating, I was walking Courtney to the Hermes cabin when the weirdest thing happened. Suddenly a giant glowing owl appeared over her head. Athena. My friend was a demigod child of Athena.

"Well, I guess you won't be staying here!" I said, and turned around, taking her to the Athena cabin instead. When we knocked on the door, the blond girl that I now recognized as Annabeth opened the door. I didn't even have to explain that Courtney had been claimed before the door was shut and I was alone again. I sighed and walked back to cabin eleven.

* * *

That night, I had another weird dream. This one wasn't as bad as before, but it was... well, it was interesting. I was sitting on a throne among the gods and goddesses, only every thing had been turned blue. No idea why it was blue, but it was. Then everything turned pink, then green, then silver, then gold, then purple, and so on. All of the gods were arguing over something, and Zeus's master bolt was flickering like an old lightbulb. Then everything faded, and I saw two people, one of which I recognized as Nico di Angelo, and the other one unfamiliar, fall down a deep trench. The trench was on an island, and there were palm trees, along with poplar, and some kind of pine that I didn't recognize. There was a figure passed out in the background, and a girl with dark hair that looked a lot like my friend Jenna was sobbing at the edge of the trench.

When I woke up, it was still dark out. Everyone was asleep except me. At least, that's what I thought. I turned over on my side and was suddenly face-to-face with that substitute that I only knew as ma'am. Not really thinking, I screamed, and everybody woke up. The lights turned on, and I realized that it was just a picture of a face taped to a broom. _Well, this is embarrassing! _I thought, and gave everybody a thumbs-up.

"False alarm, guys. It was just a prank." Everybody groaned and the lights switched back off. Too bad for my intention of not embarrassing myself anymore. Well, whatever. I needed to get back to sleep. Unfortunately, I couldn't. No matter how many sheep I counted, it didn't help. So I just laid there on the floor of the Hermes cabin until daybreak.

In the morning, I changed back into the same t-shirt and shorts that I had worn the day before (I know, ew.) and went out to breakfast. Hopefully I would be claimed so I could get away from the Stoll brothers. Well, slightly farther away. I was excited to meet up with Courtney again when I remembered that she had already been claimed. That dampened my spirits a little.

I sat down at the newbie table, alone like usual, and conjured some pancakes. I got a glass of chocolate milk and just kind of, you know, shoved the food into my mouth. If you hadn't figured it out already, I really like food. As I looked around at the other tables, I recognized a few people from a certain book series. There was Percy, and Courtney was seated at the same table as Annabeth. I saw the Stoll brothers, and Clarisse, who had accused me of being an attacker. Then I spotted Nico and-oh, gods-Leo Valdez. I'll admit, I had a major crush on Leo. Who wouldn't? He's hilarious, kind, and pretty hot, if you know what I mean. I forced myself to focus my attention on my plate instead of the curly-haired boy over at the Hephaestus table and kept eating.

Later, we had swordfighting with the Ares cabin, and they kicked our butts. There's not really much to say, except I was partnered with Clarisse, and now I might have a black eye. Thanks, Clarisse. I really needed you to punch me in the face while knocking me over with the hilt of your sword. After that, I had to go to a class about monsters and how to kill them, blah blah blah. I already knew this stuff, and I wouldn't be too surprised if Courtney and I ended up being related.

The most interesting part of my day was when I found out that my best friend, Jenna, was a daughter of Poseidon. We literally ran into each other when I was walking past her cabin. She helped me up, because I had fallen on my butt somehow. Then we took one look at each other and just started cracking up. I felt like I might explode, I was laughing so hard.

So then after dinner we all went back to our cabins for about an hour before going to the campfire, where we roasted s'mores and listened to the Apollo kids tell stories. And for the first night in a long time, I fell asleep as soon as I climbed into my sleeping bad.


	4. I Meet My Dad

**Hey guys sorry if this chapter is kind of short. If it's not, then good. I'll try to write about something exciting and not boring, but I'm kind of lost for ideas. So please review with any ideas you come up with, and I just might use them! Thanks!**

* * *

It was three days after I arrived at camp that I was claimed. Everyone was almost done with lunch, and I stood up to head back to the cabin when everybody started staring at me. At first I wasn't sure what they were looking at, but I really hoped that it wasn't another one of the Stoll brothers' tricks. Then it clicked. I looked up, and saw a giant glowing bird above my head.

I had been wishing so hard that it would be Athena, even though I knew that she wasn't my godly parent, that at first it looked like an owl. "Cool! Athena!" I exclaimed, but then most of that cabin looked pretty offended, and I knew I was wrong.

"Katie," said Jenna, "That's not an owl."

"I know." I replied, "It's an eagle. I'm a daughter of Zeus." The bird disappeared. Even though most people knew what it meant, a gasp went through the group of demigods. It was pretty embarrassing when everyone kept their distance.

First, I was avoided because I had shown up out of no where. Now, I was being avoided because my dad is the most powerful of all the gods, and my best friend's dad is also one of the Big Three. It's not too fun. Also, Nico and Jenna are friends, so I've gotten to know a son of Hades. Now, some people are a little scared of me. It sucks.

Oh, and staying in the Zeus cabin isn't all that great either. It was pretty embarrassing when I first walked in. When the doors of my new cabin opened, I didn't see anyone at first. I took a few steps forward, and was immediately stared down at by my dad's statue. That was pretty terrifying, honestly. I mean, who wants to sleep in a place where your dad is constantly watching your every move?

"Who are you? What are you doing in here?" a voice suddenly shouted. I spun around and saw a boy who looked about sixteen with blond hair and striking blue eyes. He had a little cut on his upper lip, and was pointing a sword straight at me. I must have looked pretty terrified, because the moment our eyes met he put the sword down and it turned into a golden coin.

"Oh," he suddenly realized who I was, "You must be the new girl! I'm Jason."

"Yeah, um... do you have any idea where I could put this?" I held up my backpack.

"Here. You can take my spot." Jason said, and went over to a little corner with all of his things hidden over there. It was the only spot in the entire cabin out of the statue's line of vision. My brother started moving over his stuff, but I stopped him.

"It's okay, I can sleep somewhere else." I said.

"No seriously, sleep in the corner. That statue's pretty fierce, but I can handle it."

"You sure?" Jason nodded. I reluctantly helped him move his things out of the corner and replace them with mine. He put his sleeping bag over on the opposite side of the room, as if he were trying to get as far away from me as possible. Not that I minded. I set up my things in the corner and was immediately grateful for Jason's willingness to give it up. Even though I felt bad for him, being stuck in the statue's gaze, it was his choice to give me the only spot in the cabin that was even slightly comfortable.

"So," Jason finally broke the awkward silence, "What's your name?"

"I'm Katie."

"Any friends here?"

"Yeah, a few. Jenna Walters, and Courtney, she's an Athena kid."

"You say 'Athena kid' like you wish you were one."

"That's because I do. It's just... daughter of Zeus doesn't feel right. I've always been told I was smart, and I always come up with a plan, even if it doesn't always work. Athena would make so much more sense. The only thing is, I live with my mom, so I knew that it wasn't Athena, even though that's what I wanted. I never see dad, so I knew that he was my, you know, godly parent. I just wasn't expecting it to be Zeus." when Jason didn't say anything, I added, "Wow. I talk a lot." Then we started laughing, and things weren't as awkward as before. It was a nice change. I guess being Zeus's daughter wasn't so bad.

* * *

The next day, Jason started teaching me to control my powers over lightning. My first couple tries, I didn't even get any tiny sparks, and after that I kept almost electrocuting myself. Trust me, controlling lightning is _not_ as easy as it looks. Jason and I decided to work on that again later, and I started working on flying. The first time I tried it, I got about two inches off the ground before I fell flat on my face. Jason was obviously trying not to laugh, but he was also failing. Then I picked myself up and tried again. This time, I floated a couple feet off of the ground. Jason kept giving me orders like "move to the left" or "do the chicken dance." That one was pretty stupid, but I did it anyway.

After about half an hour of flying practice, we went to our scheduled swordfighting lesson. Of course, the Ares cabin was also there along with the Aphrodite kids, and I got partnered with Clarisse again. Why did I keep getting partnered with her? She was way older than me, and much more experienced. Of course, I had been practicing a ton lately, but you had to take into consideration that she was sixteen and I was almost twelve. Somehow, she didn't kick my behind this time, and I didn't end up with a black eye either. After I had her disarmed (how did _that _happen?), I was partnered with some girl from the Aphrodite cabin. She was my age, with light brown hair and sparkly blue eyes. She was really pretty, but you know why. Any child of Aphrodite isn't going to be ugly.

After I had _that_ girl's sword five feet away on the ground (don't ask how that happened) I retrieved it for her and asked what her name was.

"Lilibeth." she said.

"Wow. That's a really pretty name. It's lots better than mine. I'm Katie, by the way." I introduced myself and handed back the sword.

"Wait, are you Jenna's friend? She talks about someone named Katie all the time!"

"Yup," I nodded and gave her a silly smile, "That would be me!" Lilibeth laughed and said that we should probably be friends. I was okay with that. Lilibeth seemed nice, and if she was Jenna's friend then I knew she would be funny. Jenna is only friends with people who have a sense of humor, and I choose my friends the same way. I had a feeling that my life at Camp Half-Blood was making a turn for the better.

That night at the campfire, Lilibeth waved me over to her little group of friends. I walked up to them, and she introduced me. Of course, I already knew Jenna and Nico, but I had never seen the boys before. One of them had curly hair slightly more reddish than my own, and his eyes were a shade somewhere between hazel and brown.

"My name's John. Son of Hephaestus." he said, and smiled. The other boy looked like he could fall asleep at any second, and he had sand-colored hair and light green eyes. Around a yawn, he said, "I'm Trey. My dad's... Dionysus."

Then everybody started laughing, singing songs, and telling stories. To be honest, the campfires were my favorite part of camp. The fire always changed color and size with the mood and tension of the stories and songs. It was amazing. Somehow, the Apollo kids ran out of songs to sing. I didn't even think that was possible, but like I've mentioned before, the universe likes proving me wrong. They asked if anybody had any ideas. Jenna jabbed me in the side with her elbow and gave me a look that said, "Come on, Katie, you know some good songs!" My friend knew that I could sing. I didn't believe it myself, but I had been told before that I had a beautiful voice. The problem was that I got terrified if I tried singing by myself in front of anyone besides my best friends.

"Fine." I said. Jenna was the only person who knew what I was talking about. Luckily, no one heard me except John, Trey, Nico, Jenna, and Lilibeth. "I'll sing, but only if you do it with me."

"Sorry, but I don't know what song you have in mind."

I glared at her, and named my song.

"Nope. Don't know it." Jenna smiled evilly, "You'll have to sing it yourself, unless someone else knows it."

"I know it!" offered Lilibeth, and I smiled gratefully.

"Let's sing the song then." I decided, and shouted out, "'Firefly' by Ed Sheeran!"

"You lead us." said an Apollo kid. I looked at Lilibeth, and we started singing.

_"I fell in love next to you,_

_Burning fires in this room._

_It just fits_

_Light and smooth_

_Like the feet in my shoes._

_Little one, lie with me._

_Sew your heart on my sleeve._

_We'll stay quiet_

_Underneath shooting stars,_

_If it helps you sleep._

_And hold me tight_

_Don't let me breathe._

_Feeling like_

_You won't believe._

_There's a firefly _

_Loose tonight._

_Better catch it _

_Before it burns this place down._

_And I lie_

_If I don't feel right,_

_But the world looks better _

_Through your eyes."_

The entire camp sang along with us, even if it took a few people some time to get the lyrics right. I had to admit, it was pretty fun. After that, other people shouted out songs, and they would lead the rest of us while we sang. We laughed so hard we cried, and we cried so hard we laughed. Then everyone went back to their cabins for the night. For once, my dreams weren't scary at all. They weren't as weird as they tend to be, either, even if they were unusual. But weird dreams were a pretty normal thing for demigods.

In my dream, I was in an elevator with Jenna, Nico, Courtney, Lilibeth, John, and Trey. When the elevator stopped, we were at the 600th floor of the Empire State Building, a.k.a Olympus. We walked through the streets until we came to the throne room of the gods. Everyone split up, walking to their parents, even Nico, because Hades was there. I bowed at the feet of my dad, and he nodded at me. Then everyone just stood there for a while until everything faded except my dad and me.

Zeus turned into his human size and started talking to me.

"Kathryn?"

"Yes, father?" I replied.

"How are you? I see you've made friends."

"Yes, father."

"How is your mother, Anne? Is she doing alright?"

"I think so. I haven't seen her in a while. You know, being halfway across the country without her knowing where I went and all."

"Of course. But your mother is perfectly aware of where you are."

"She is?"

Zeus nodded. "She knew you were a demigod before you were born. I had told her who I was, you see. Your mother knew that you would need to go to Camp Half-Blood at some point. That's why she moved you to Middleville. There aren't very many monsters there."

"Oh." I didn't really know what else to say.

"I assume you got your gift?" my dad asked. I realized he was talking about the sword. It would just randomly appear in my pocket as an everyday item whenever I needed it. I nodded, and he smiled.

"Good bye, Kathryn. Perhaps I will see you again soon." With that, the dream faded, and I woke up. It was morning.


	5. The Things We Have in Common

Later that day, I saw Jenna on the shore practicing her water power thingymabob. I had to admit, she was absolutely amazing. First she made a hurricane around herself, then she turned the water into a horse. The water animal ran in circles over the waves, then disappeared.

"Jenna!" I shouted, running toward her. Jenna turned around and saw me, and smiled for a moment. Then, her smile faded.

"What is it?" I asked, "What's wrong?"

"Katie, do you remember any of your dreams from last night?" That didn't really answer my question, but I nodded. She looked at me expectantly, and I retold my dream from the night before. "That's weird," Jenna said, "because I had the exact same dream, except it was_ my_ dad talking to _me. _And he was asking about my mom and River Rush-that's my sword-and things, just like your dad was talking about your mom and... wait what do you call that thing again?" Jenna gestured at my pocket. I took out my sword, this time in the form of a pencil sharpener, and thought about what she said. Of course I knew that River Rush was her sword, but I was wondering why Jenna and I had had the same dream. Maybe everyone else in the dream had dreamed it too? I didn't know for sure, but it was a good idea. Anyway, I didn't even know the name of my sword. It made me feel pathetic, but that was sort of a problem in the demigod world, as far as I had noticed.

"Um..." I turned my sword from side to side in my hand, looking for an inscription of some sort. "I don't see anything, and I never really got any indication of what it's called."

Jenna pondered this for a second. Why were we even thinking about these things? It made no sense at all, but then again, neither did the dreams we had. "OH!" Jenna suddenly shouted.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I know it just shows up as random things, but maybe your sword's name has something to do with what it showed up as the first time!"

"Really? Bouncy Ball the sword? I don't think so." I wasn't very amused, but Jenna laughed. "That would be funny." she said. I glared at her. Suddenly, an idea struck me.

"Jenna," I said, "what are bouncy balls made of?"

"Um... rubber?"

"Exactly. And what is rubber able to absorb?"

Jenna's face paled. "Lightning."

"Pretty much." I confirmed, "So it _wasn't_ just a regular bouncy ball after all! Oh, I should have known! It was a sign from Zeus that I was his daughter, before he had even claimed me!" That seemed pretty unlikely, but I was an optimist. Jenna obviously didn't agree with my idea. She didn't say anything, but I could tell by the look on her face. I didn't really mind.

It was a Saturday, and we didn't have any lessons or whatever, so we ran around camp until we found Lilibeth and John talking about mythology. If I hadn't woken up only half an hour ago, I would have been debating who the best ancient hero was with them. I sprinted up to them, even though my lungs were already strained from running, due to my sports asthma. When I flung myself on the bench of the picnic table, John jumped about a foot into the air and bumped his knees on the tabletop. "OW!" he shouted. I forced myself not to laugh, because that would only make my breathing even more difficult.

"Hey Katie. Hey Jenna." Lilibeth greeted us without paying attention to John, "What's up?"

I panted like a dog, "We... dream... Olympus... gaaaahhhh!" I collapsed onto the picnic table and Jenna explained for me.

"What Katie's trying to say is that we both had very similar dreams, and they both involved you guys." John and Lilibeth looked at each other, and the redheaded boy spoke.

"Lilibeth and I both had dreams where the seven of us-you, me, Lilibeth, Katie, Nico, Courtney, and Trey-were all in the elevator of the Empire State Building, going to Olympus. Then we met our parents, and each of us spoke to our matching god or goddess. In Lilibeth's dream, she spoke to Aphrodite. In mine, I spoke to my dad Hephaestus. Were your dreams anything like that?"

I nodded (I had recovered), "That's exactly what happened in ours. I spoke to my dad, and in Jenna's dream, she spoke to _her_ dad."

Jenna continued, "We haven't seen Nico anywhere today, so we don't know if the same thing happened to him. Courtney told me about it earlier while Katie was dreaming about riding unicorns with Leo Valdez."

I punched her in the arm and asked, "Have you guys heard anything from Trey?"

"Nope." said Lilibeth, "He's still asleep."

I chuckled. "Go figure." Lilibeth giggled. Jenna started talking to Lilibeth about how weird it was that five of us had had the same dream. I didn't really pay attention to their conversation, but looked over at John. It was dark at the campfire the night before, so I hadn't gotten a chance to get a good look at him yet. John's curly rust-colored hair was swept just off of his forehead, and his eyes (which I had confirmed were a light brown) sparkled just a little bit in the bright sunlight. John had broad shoulders, covered by his camp shirt. He seemed fidgety, and his fingers were  
tapping the table in a random pattern as if he were bored.

I had to admit, John could be considered kind of cute. Even though I definitely didn't have even the tiniest bit of a possible crush on him, I could see how other girls might. Then John noticed me studying him, and I felt the heat rise to my cheeks. I was pretty pale, so of course the blushing stood out like a sore thumb. John smiled at me, and I gave him a little smile in return.

"So..." he said awkwardly, "How are you?"

"Considering I just ate breakfast and I'm still in my pajamas, pretty good!" I answered. We both laughed. "If you hadn't noticed already, I like wearing my pajamas." I added.

"I noticed."

"That makes sense."

"Yeah."

We sat there in the awkward almost-silence for a few seconds, then started cracking up for no reason. The burst of laughter startled Jenna and Lilibeth, and they flinched, but then they started laughing with John and me. I don't think any of us had any idea what we were laughing, unless Jenna and Lilibeth were laughing at me and John.

"I have a song stuck in my head." mentioned John randomly, after our stomachs hurt and we could barely breathe from laughing so hard.

"What song?" asked Jenna.

"That one Katie and Lilibeth sang last night. What was it called, 'Lightning Bugs?'"

"Fireflies. It's called Fireflies." I corrected him.

"Oh."

And the fits of laughter started all over again.

* * *

About three hours later, Trey stumbled out of the Dionysus cabin. John, Lilibeth, Jenna, Courtney, and I were standing right in front of the door, ready for him. Trey yawned, still sleepy, as always. Then he saw us.

"AAAAAAAAAHH!" Trey screamed and scrambled back into his cabin. One of his siblings pushed him back out. He rubbed his eyes and yawned, saying, "Hey guys, I... didn't see you... there." All of us laughed, except Trey. He just yawned... again.

"Alright... TREY!" Jenna shouted. For a few seconds, Trey looked wide awake.

"What is it?" he asked.

"What did you dream about last night?"

"Um... there was... a big cloud, and I was riding on it..."

I groaned, but apparently Trey wasn't done yet.

"Oh, and then we were all in an elevator with some other kid in black clothes. After that we walked to... to a big fancy room with a bunch of really big people on thrones in it. Then, we all went to one of the people, and you guys disappeared. So I started talking to... my dad. Weird, right?" Trey looked at us like he was expecting us to be at least a little shocked. We weren't, obviously.

"Six down, one to go." Jenna said, and I smiled. When I looked around at the rest of my friends, I noticed that the only other person smiling was John. He met my eye, and I blushed for a second. But he just smiled even wider. I honestly had no idea why, but it was pretty weird.

"Alright," Lilibeth finally broke the silence, "Time to find Nico." All I have to say about _that_ is that it took a long time, and after we found him it was pretty difficult to get the boy to speak.


	6. Awakened

**Hey! Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I had a bit of writer's block, and then I had to go to my grandma's house. I would have typed up another few chapters over there, but her internet was down. :( So now I'm updating (YAY!) and I hope I can think of more stuff to write about before I bore everybody to death.**

**Also sorry if my chapters end up kind of short. I'll try to make them longer!**

**Anyway pleeeeeeeaaaaaase review because I need to know if you guys like the story and what I can do to make it better, so... yeah. Pretty please?**

* * *

"But why on Earth would all seven of us have almost _exactly _the same dream?" Courtney asked. We had been discussing the dream issue for nearly half an hour. Trey fell asleep every few minutes, Nico tried to shadow travel out of the Zeus cabin (where we were arguing), John got bored and made a tiny mechanical replica of the Minotaur, Jenna made a spider out of water and scared Courtney and me half to death, and I somehow ended up hanging by my feet from the ceiling. Don't ask how I got there.

"Look," I said, turning myself right-side up, "This is definitely pretty weird. But you have to remember that we're demigods. Weird things are going to happen, right? It's just something that we have to deal with. We'll get the answers eventually, we just need to be patient." Jenna sighed.

"Katie, I know you're trying to help, and we _should_ be patient," she said, "But that's not going to work. You were right when you said we were demigods, so we need to deal with the weird things that are thrown in our paths. Waiting isn't what I consider 'dealing with it.'"

"Fine," I answered, "But just one question: How are we supposed to deal with it? What's your plan this time, ask ethe gods for help?" I could feel the tension rising in the air, but it didn't matter. I was mad, even if I didn't know why. "Do you really think that _they'll_ help us? Sure, they're the ones who sent us the dream, but I really doubt that they'll explain it for us. " Now everyone could obviously sense the electricity in the air. I still didn't care. Why was I getting so mad? I really had no idea. But I didn't care. Or did I? I didn't know. That really sucked, because I really like knowing things._  
_

Then John and Jenna looked at each other. I didn't know what it was, but some kind of understanding passed through them. Both of them stood up and put their hands on my shoulders and pulled me back down to the floor. Surprisingly, I hadn't even noticed that I had started floating in the air. Jenna and John just held me there for a little while. For some reason I struggled, and whatever that unknown reason was just made me even more mad. I still had no idea why I was getting so upset. My feet were no longer on the ground; I was floating again.

"Katie," Jenna said, "Calm down. It's just a dream. I'm not mad at you. Why are you mad at me?" I tensed up for some reason. That was another unknown thing to figure out.

Then John whispered in my ear, "Katie, It's okay." I had no idea why(see what I mean with wanting to know things?), but this convinced me to relax just a little bit. John's voice was calm, and soothing. It sent a slight shiver down my spine. That was pretty weird.

I took a deep breath, and my feet touched floor again. Suddenly, I felt really dizzy. I started to get light-headed, and black spots danced before my eyes. My knees went weak and I fell on the ground.

"Katie!" someone shouted. I couldn't tell who's voice it was, but it echoed around the dim, fuzzy outline of my vision. There was something solid and warm on my arm, and I didn't know exactly what it was. Somehow my brain told me it was a hand, or maybe two. I didn't care. I could barely see the outlines of my friends as they called my name over and over. Maybe that was the echo.

All I could feel now was the coldness of the floor. Some part of me wanted to just sink right into it, to be absorbed by the cold. Why did I want that? Two words ran through my head over and over again.

_Dark. Cold. Dark. Cold. Dark. Cold._

It was all that I could think about for a few seconds before I finally passed out.

* * *

Some time later, I opened my eyes, but I could barely make out the blurry outlines of people around me. I could tell that I was laying down, but not much else. The only thing I heard was a few hushed whispers and quiet footsteps from somewhere else in the building I assumed I was in. There was no crackle of lightning or thunder, and the light was warm instead of harsh and unwelcoming, so I knew that I was no longer on the floor of the Zeus cabin.

"Guys," came a sleepy voice from somewhere off to my left. "She's awake!" Then came the sound of a chair being (unintentionally, I hoped) knocked over and clumsy footsteps as they rushed closer to wherever I was laying.

"Jeez, John!" said another voice that I recognized as Jenna's. "Calm down, it's not like she's rising from the dead."

"Yeah. I would know." mumbled a quiet voice from the other side of the room. This voice was hushed, and sounded like it was ready to break at any given moment.

"It's okay Nico." a sweet female voice said, "Don't act like it's your fault she passed out. 'Cause it's not any of our faults. That part's pretty obvious." Was that Lilibeth? I wasn't completely sure.

"How can you be so sure?" Nico asked, "Maybe it _is _one of our faults, we just don't want to admit it."

"Nico." Jenna spoke his name sternly. "Lilibeth is right. None of us caused this."

"Can we just stop with the 'it's so-and-so's fault' business and just be happy that she's awake? Did you ever think that she might be listening to us and wishing that we weren't fighting over who's fault it is, and who's fault it isn't? Because I really doubt that she enjoys hearing her friends argue. I really doubt she likes hearing arguing at all." John spoke for the first time. I silently thanked him. He was right, after all. I could definitely hear the argument, and I didn't like it one bit.

The shapes of my friends were starting to appear more clearly, even though it had taken a while. I could see Nico standing in the corner of the room, as far away from the rest of us as possible. Trey and Lilibeth sat awkwardly in chairs to my right. Jenna leaned against the left wall, and John stood about six inches away from the bed, eyes wide and hopeful. I could also see the chair that he knocked upside-down over by the wall. Maybe John was clumsy, like I was.

"Where... where are we?" I asked. My voice came out strained, and my throat hurt slightly from the effort. _Talking shouldn't be this hard_, I thought.

"You're in a bedroom in the Big House." Jenna answered, "You've been here for two days."

"Th-that long?"

"Yup. You missed some exciting stuff."

I groaned. "What did I miss?" Now talking wasn't as hard.

"Well," John said, "There was a capture the flag game the night you passed out, and then the next day it was some Iris kid's birthday, so all of us had cake and ice cream. Then there were fireworks - not for the kid's birthday, it was something else - and they were really cool! Of course, some of my siblings made those. Leo had one that was this giant golden dragon... that was probably my favorite. Oh, and then-"

"John." Jenna stopped his blabbering. "I think she's heard enough." I mouthed the words "thank you" to Jenna, and she smiled. Of course, Jenna knew I had a crush on Leo, and I knew what the dragon was. I felt kind of bad for Leo, losing Festus. Then a thought hit me: I had read Mark of Athena, and I knew what had happened, so shouldn't Percy and Annabeth be in... you know, Tartarus? I shouldn't have thought of that. Then my mind crossed out the idea. They had probably gotten out already or something. Those books were just documenting their lives, so they were about things that had already happened. Right?

Then I noticed everyone was staring at me. Whoops. I get distracted a lot.

"Katie," Lilibeth said, "Jenna asked you a question."

"Oh. Sorry, I... zoned out." I apologized. Jenna just rolled her eyes.

"Did you have any dreams while you were unconscious?" I shook my head.

"All I remember is passing out in the cabin, a few seconds of darkness, and then waking up here. Sorry." Jenna looked a little frustrated frustrated. So did John and Nico. Then another thought hit me:

"Where's Courtney?" I asked.

"She went home. Said she didn't want to see anymore 'weird things'." Jenna said glumly, but I noticed a hint of amusement.

"Oh. Good luck with _that._" I almost chuckled a little. John covered his mouth like he was hiding a yawn, but a little dimple appeared in his cheek and I knew he was hiding a smile. Really the dimple was nearly unnoticeable, but I pay really close attention to detail. Most of the time. No one else said anything.

"So..." Lilibeth broke the silence. "How have you been?"

"Seriously?" Jenna laughed, "She's been unconscious for two days, and you ask how she's been?"

"What? it was all I could think of to say!" the Aphrodite girl blushed. Everyone laughed except for Nico, who rarely laughed, and Lilibeth, who was just plain embarrassed.

We talked for a while, and then everyone left. That is, except for John. He sat on the end of the bed, nearly squishing my feet, and looked at me with big brown puppy dog eyes.

"Do you need anything?" he asked politely, "Orange juice, kleenex, maybe balloons?"

I laughed, "Why would I need balloons?"

"In case you get bored."

"I really doubt I'll get bored if you're still here." The words slipped out of my mouth before I even thought about them. I had no idea why I said that, or what I meant by it, and I blushed. John looked a little shocked. Then he smiled and said, "Balloons it is, then." Before I could object, he was out the door and I was left alone. But not for too long.

Chiron came into the room just a couple minutes after John left. I was pretty surprised to see him, and not because he was in his wheelchair.

"You're awake." the centaur said. He didn't seem surprised at all. Chiron rolled his wheelchair away from the door and stopped it near my bed.

"Um... what did you want to tell me?" I asked tentatively. Chiron hadn't said much of anything, but I figured he wanted to talk about something. What it was, I didn't know.

"Nothing." Chiron answered, "I was just making sure you had woken up." Was he hiding something from me? Perhaps.

"Now, I'm sure your friend John will be back soon." he said, and left the room. How did Chiron know about that? He couldn't have been eavesdropping on the balloon conversation, could he? Now I was just plain confused. At the same time, I was frustrated because at the moment, nothing made any sense.

Sure enough, John stepped back into the room only seconds later. He waved at me and held up a bag of balloons. I had seen the same package at the camp store. For some reason they looked pretty fun now, even if they hadn't before. John sat down in a chair and tried to rip open the package. It was a flimsy looking bag, but he failed.

"Here," I stretched out my hand. "Let me try." John handed the bag of balloons to me and I attempted to rip it open the same way he had. It didn't work. After a few failed attempts at opening it, I just used my teeth and pulled out a few of the balloons out. I tossed the bag to John and started blowing.

Even if I couldn't breathe underwater like Jenna, I had pretty strong lungs. In no time, I had blown up five balloons larger than my head. John had only blown up one. Without thinking, I pulled a black Sharpie out of my pocket.

"We can draw faces on them!" I suggested with exaggerated excitement.

"Okay!" John agreed with the same type of exaggeration. Not realizing what I was doing, I uncapped the marker and it turned into a two-foot-long Celestial bronze sword. Whoops. I changed the sword back into a marker, and it disappeared like it usually does when I'm done with it.

John laughed, and laughed, and laughed. It was kind of funny to watch him, actually. His face turned red from a lack of oxygen, and he clutched his stomach as tears started streaming down his face. After a little bit he recovered and explained the laughing fit between gasps of air. "You should have... seen your face... when the... sword came out... hilarious!" Then he chuckled a little and hit a balloon toward me.

"Don't let it touch the floor!" I shrieked, and hit the balloon into the air before it was out of my reach. Then we started the don't-let-the-balloon-touch-the-floor-or-you-die game. Maybe not that severely, but we made sure the balloons didn't touch the floor. It was pretty hard because four of them were in the air. One had already popped.

Once, a balloon drifted over to the other side of the room and was about six inches above the carpet before we noticed it. I was still stuck in the bed (John was scared I would fall over for some reason), so John flung himself across the floor and hit the balloon at the very last second. Turns out he's just as obsessed with this game as I am. I had to admit, it was pretty hilarious.

Then Jason walked in. John was hidden from my brother's sight, because he was on the opposite side of the bed, so Jason didn't notice him at first.

"Hey," he said, "How's my little sis doing?" I didn't expect that, but then again, I didn't expect what came next either. Apparently John was startled by the voice of someone else in the room, and he jumped up, hitting his head on one of the chairs (why were those everywhere, anyway?) in the process.

"OW!" John yelled, and Jason actually looked shocked for a second. Then he just laughed. It wasn't as intense as when John was cracking up, but it was pretty funny.

"Alright, how long has he been here?" John asked.

"About thirty seconds." Jason answered. Then he held out his hand. "I'm Jason, by the way."

"John." my friend and my half-brother shook hands. Then we started making small talk, until the boys decided it was time to leave. I jumped out of bed and declared that I was going with them. I was getting sick of being stuck in bed, even if I was only aware of that for a few hours. Plus I didn't have much to do. Camp activities would be much more fun.

"Alright." Jason smiled, "It has been pretty lonely in cabin one without you."

We walked to the front doors of the Big House, which seemed bigger on the inside, and when I passed Chiron in the hallway I told him I was ready to get out. He nodded and let me go without another word.


	7. I Get an Early Birthday Present

**Hey guys I know I've said it before, but please review because I need more on this story! **

**Also I thought I should let you guys know that since it's summer I should be able to update more, but I might not be able to update for a while. If I can, I will. I promise! But please review and I just might update more often. Maybe. But only if you review! So... yeah.**

* * *

When I walked into the Zeus cabin, it seemed different. I didn't know what it was, but something didn't feel right. Was it the statue? No, Dad was as huge and grumpy-looking as ever.

The ceiling? Nope. Lighting still crackled, and thunder roared every few seconds. There was nothing new there.

Maybe it was the floor? I had no idea why that came to mind, but I checked just to make sure. _Nope. _Still polished marble that was so clean I could see my reflection in it. Who cleaned this place, anyway? I never saw anyone in here besides Jason and sometimes my friends, and I was pretty sure that no one at camp was named Cinderella.

Then I glanced over at my corner. At first I didn't notice anything peculiar. But of course, my mind told me to look again. Sitting next to my sleeping bag (which someone had rolled up, I noticed) was a small package. It was messily wrapped in plain brown paper and when I picked it up, it was addressed to me. There was no return address, nothing besides the sticker that said:

_To:_

_Kathryn Marentette_

_Cabin 1, Camp Half-Blood_

It wasn't exactly a full address, but it was all that was there. I opened the package, careful not to rip the brown paper, but the wrapping disappeared as soon as I had taken it off. Inside was a box. Curious, as always, I opened the box and pulled out an envelope. It was wrapped in clear plastic and sealed. Why was there so much protection?

In the envelope was another envelope. I groaned. Maybe this was just another prank? I got pranked a lot. It would make sense if this was just another one of those. Or maybe not...

I opened the second envelope. Inside of _this _was a folded piece of paper. There was a wax seal holding it together, and on the outside of the paper was a note that said "You may need this." Wondering what the heck I might need that required so much wrapping, I peeled off the seal and unfolded the paper. When I did, something fell out. That was strange. When I had picked up the folded paper, there wasn't any lump at all. The paper hadn't been heavy, either. I picked up the object that had fallen out of the paper. It was a necklace.

The necklace was simple, with a thin black cord and a small silver clasp. On the end was a pendant that looked like an upside-down teardrop, the shape of a guitar pick. The pendant was really just a smooth gray rock, without any speckles or color besides the solid, smoky gray. I turned it over, and carved in the back of the rock was a lightning bolt.

"Zeus." I whispered, and a huge bolt of lighting flashed across the ceiling, larger than the ones that sparked on a day-to-day basis. I looked up, surprised, and saw the statue of Zeus move. It was a small movement, just the hand moving up and lifting the master bolt. I blinked, and the statue was back in its original position.

I looked at the necklace one more time, looking for some other hint as to why I would need it. I sighed. It hadn't changed one bit. Even though I didn't know exactly what it was supposed to do for me, or what it might do to me if I used it-that is, if I could figure out how to use it- I put it on. It was only a little surprising when I could barely feel it as I tucked it under my shirt. Then all of the wrapping it had come in disappeared, and Jason walked in. He looked nervous.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Um..." he looked at the statue of Zeus. "Someone's here to see you."

"Well, who is it?"

"You'll have to see for yourself." my brother replied flatly.

Then, the thing that I was least expecting happened. A tall man with a beard, wearing a pinstriped suit, walked into the cabin. Who was this guy? Then it hit me:

It was my dad.

* * *

**Sorry this chapter is really short... I didn't know what else to write. :/**


	8. Questions and Other Junk

**I'm back! :D Sorry it took so long, but I can finally update! If you really need to know why I couldn't work on this for a while, just tell me and I can explain. But I'm back, and I'm sorry because chapter 6 really sucked, plus I left you at a bit of a cliffhanger. So I hope this chapter doesn't turn out sucky and I can go on with the story without making it boring. I've got a couple ideas, I just need to figure out exactly what I'm going to do with them, so hopefully this thing doesn't fade away into something boring and not worth reading. Anyway, on with the story! Let's go! **

* * *

My eyes widened as my father turned to me. Zeus's face was expressionless, but a little spark showed in his dark eyes. Then, he tapped his neck as if he was making sure I had gotten the gift and looked at me expectantly. I guess that made it official that it was from my dad. I nodded back at him.

All of a sudden, he turned and walked out the door.

"That," Jason said, "Was the weirdest thing I have ever seen."

"Yeah, it was, wasn't it?" I agreed.

* * *

That day at lunch, I ate my pizza silently, ignoring all of the noise around me as other people chatted to their friends and half-siblings. To be honest, I was absolutely confused. Even though I didn't show it, questions were constantly running through my head. What had caused me to have the same dream as my friends? Why did I get so mad before I passed out? What was the point of the necklace, and why did it matter so much? Why would Zeus come all the way to Camp Half-Blood just to disappear seconds later? None of it made sense.

There was one other thing that was nagging at me from the back of my mind, but I couldn't really tell what it was. All I knew was that something that would answer all of my questions, but I couldn't remember what it happened to be, or how I knew it. That was really annoying. Like I've mentioned before, I prefer to know things.

Not too much later, John walked over. At first I didn't notice him saying my name and waving his hand around in front of my face. Then I jerked out of my half-awake state and jumped up from my seat at the table.

"What is it?" I asked frantically.

"Katie, I was just making sure you knew that lunch ended ten minutes ago. We're going to be late for the rock wall climbing." John said.

"What?! Why didn't you tell me earlier? You know I hate being late! Oh, come _on_!" I grabbed him by the wrist and sprinted to the rock wall. Trust me, it hurt. My lungs, at least, because of my sports asthma. When we got to the wall, we got a few weird looks, but nothing too bad.

By the time it was my turn to climb the lava-spewing, stone dropping nightmare, I had gotten pretty bored waiting at the end of the line. Sure, it was funny to watch people dodge the obstacles while hanging on to the wall, especially John (he almost fell off quite a few times), but I was ready to try it myself. I stepped up the rocky thing and started to climb. For some people, it would be pretty dangerous not to have a harness or a support rope, or whatever, but I was fine, considering I could fly. I didn't cheat, though. I'm not that kind of person.

Somehow I didn't get burned or knocked off, and before I payed any attention, I was at the top and scrambling down the other side. About a foot above the ground, I pushed myself off the wall and landed on my feet in the dirt. I was still thinking about the same things as I had been at lunch, but not as much. Who _would_ be if they were climbing the craziest rock wall on Earth?

Next was archery. I'll be honest, I suck at it. No matter how much I focus on getting the arrow to the bull's-eye, it hits somewhere between the very edge and the ring outside the center. That is, if it even gets to the target. My point is, archery is not my strong suit. Okay, I don't really like it, either. I definitely prefer a sword to a bow and arrow, even if I believe that your mind is the strongest weapon you can have. See why it would make sense if I were an Athena kid?

After archery, we had a free hour. I found Jenna- or she found me, I don't know which it was-and we talked about the things we always talked about before we knew we were demigods, like books and music, that sort of thing. It was a nice change from the dreams and monsters that we usually talked about these days.

"You know what song I have stuck in my head?" I asked.

"What one? There are so many I can't even try to guess." Jenna said, laying on her back in the grass.

"That one by Green Day, 'Time of Your Life.'"

"You mean 'Good Riddance'?"

"Ah, same thing." I said. Jenna laughed. Before we knew it, both of us were laughing really hard, rolling around on the ground without any idea why we were doing that. Neither of us cared. I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt, but it felt good. I hadn't laughed so hard in a long time, at least as far as I remembered, and it made me feel better than I did before. Sometimes laughter really is the best medicine.


	9. Where's home?

After another week at camp, I decided that it was time for me to go back home. I had spent a lot of time training, and my mom was most likely missing me, so I knew I would be safe-for the most part. Plus, not many monsters that were capable of actually hurting me decided to visit Middleville. It's a tiny town with barely any Mist there, so the only monsters that came nearby were either practically harmless or very, very stupid.

Even if school was out, there were things I needed to do back at home. My friend Hannah was probably wondering where I had gone, and I was starting to go a little crazy without my iPod. I'm really obsessed with music, if you were wondering. I couldn't care less about the apps or whatever. Of course, it wasn't usually a good thing for demigods to be using technology, but considering how little of the Mist was covering my home town and the very small amount of monsters that came around, I had been fine whenever I used it. That is, except the part where my mom's laptop crashed whenever I used it for schoolwork.

Jason acted like he was sad to see me go, but I could tell he really didn't care much. Nico looked like he was a little depressed about it, but he always looked like that. Jenna told me she would probably go back in a few weeks too. There were a lot of hugs before I left, except Nico, who doesn't give hugs. He just kind of half-waved and shoved his hands back into his pockets. Of course, Lilibeth and Trey gave me long, very awkward hugs, Lilibeth because... well, that's kind of obvious. She's my friend, and also a child of the goddess of love. Trey was because he was half-asleep(nothing new there)and wasn't really paying attention. But I did notice that John held me just a little tighter than everyone else.

* * *

That night, after I ate dinner back at my house, I was sitting on my bed reading a book. To be more specific, the first part of Lord of the Rings. If you didn't know already, that's called 'The Fellowship of the Ring.' It's absolutely amazing, but my mind kept drifting away from the pages, making me think of somewhere-or rather, someone-else. Obviously, I was thinking of Camp Half-Blood. That's where my friends were. I had called over to Courtney's house when I got home to ask if she wanted to hang out, but her mom answered and told me she had gone back to Camp. The next few minutes, I called Hannah, but all I got was the answering machine.

I sighed, wondering why I had left that place. Sure, it had activities that could be considered dangerous, and sure, it was run by a grumpy wine god (who happened to be my friend's dad), but it was a place where I felt safe. It was a place where I felt like I actually belonged, unlike most places that I had been before. Just being at Camp Half-Blood gave me a nice feeling inside, like the people there actually understood me, instead of all the people back in Michigan who just left me to listen to my music and read my books...alone, most of the time. Of course I had friends, but it's not like I was with them every second of the day. Usually we just kept in touch through email. Now that I knew I was a demigod, that might change. Maybe it wouldn't, but I bet that it would. Anyway, I was lonely.

Even if I was thinking of Camp Half-Blood, I was mainly thinking of someone there. Of course I was thinking of my friends there, I was remembering one in particular: John.

I didn't know what it was, but I couldn't get him off my mind. It was pretty annoying, with his red hair and those freckles not too unlike my own. Sure, his eyes sparkled like diamonds, and sure, his laugh was pretty adorable, but there was no way I could possibly like John in _that _way. He was my friend! There was no way anything more would ever happen between us. Was there? _Ugh!_ I thought, W_hy am I thinking of him, anyway? _

Maybe I was just thinking of John because he was the person who I had the most memories of from Camp. That would make sense. The balloons in my room, him whispering in my ear back at the cabin, smiling next to me while we sang at the campfire, the dream of Mt. Olympus, when he met Jason, climbing the rock wall, me laughing while he told jokes at the docks in front of the water (where Jenna was talking to the fish), his jaw dropping when I was claimed as a daughter of Zeus, kicking his butt at capture the flag, all kinds of things. There was nothing really important, was there? I couldn't decide.

* * *

Later, I couldn't sleep. I would start to drift off, but then my brain would send me an image of Camp, or you-know-who, or some type of monster, and I would snap back awake. When I looked at the clock for the millionth time, it told me that it was nearly midnight. 11:52, to be exact. With nothing else to do, I climbed out of bed and opened the window. Shivering at the crisp night air against my skin, I crawled out the window and jumped to the ground. I was freezing cold, in nothing but my pajama shorts and an old t-shirt, but I didn't really care that I didn't have a jacket. My toes lifted just a few inches above the ground, and I looked up at the night sky. Stars were shining all over and the moon was full.

Before I knew it, I was soaring above the treetops, looking down on the forest that surrounded my neighborhood. With no idea where I was going, I just relaxed and let the winds take me wherever they wanted to. I flew over houses and forests, rivers and lakes. The clouds floated gently around me from time to time, which I didn't think was possible, considering they were made of water vapor.

When the air dropped me, I touched down lightly and looked around me. I was shocked by where I was.

*flashback*

_I heard the sound of fighting around me and saw thousands of warriors in full armor battling to the death. Every time a warrior died, he was replaced by one of the shrieking ghosts. Soon everything was gone except the ghosts and the red sun shining through their transparent skin. Their screams filled the air until I could think of nothing else. The noises filled my mind, and I curled into a ball on the ground, covering my ears and quaking with fear._

_Suddenly, all was silent. I opened my eyes and realized that I was awake once more. I stood up and noticed that I wasn't in my room. I was at the edge of a forest._

_I slowly took in my surroundings. To my left was a pine tree with a sleeping dragon wrapped around the trunk. That was pretty scary. Hanging in the branches was a shimmering piece of golden fabric._

_"The Golden Fleece." I breathed. I had read a lot of Greek mythology and recognized the fabric almost immediately. Not quite believing what I was seeing, I pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Sure enough, I was wide awake. In front of me were a bunch of strawberry fields. At least that's what they looked like. I couldn't be completely sure, because it was really dark. Then I took a few steps forward and the scenery changed._

_Now, I could see a farm house and a bunch of cabins in the shape of a Greek omega. In the distance, I could still see the strawberry fields. Where was I? I had no idea, but I was pretty freaked out. Then again, I couldn't think of anyone I knew who wouldn't be freaked out. Being my curious self, I started walking around. I strolled past the farm house, which was completely dark except for one window in what I assumed was the attic. Then I walked around the cabins, which were all pretty cool. A couple of them were just mini versions of the Greek temples. But other ones were pretty interesting. One looked like it had been brought up from the ocean floor. Another one was covered in flowers and plants. I shuddered at the sight of that one, remembering my dream. Even in the darkness, one of the cabins kind of glowed in a golden color. I saw one cabin that was pretty spooky. It was made entirely of what looked like obsidian, but I couldn't be completely sure, and kind of radiated death. Don't ask how I could feel that. I just could._

_There were a lot of other ones. I admit, I looked in the windows of a couple. One of them was completely filled with sleeping people, and another was completely empty. _Why don't they just put people in the empty cabins?_ I wondered. That would make more sense, but it wasn't really my problem. Whatever._

_I kept walking around, but all I saw were a few basketball courts and small arenas. There was also a place with a bunch of picnic tables. Each table was labeled, but I couldn't read them in the dark. _Oh well_. I sat down at one, because I was exhausted, and before I knew what was happening, I was asleep._

_*_end of flashback*

Sure enough, the winds had flown me back to Camp Half-Blood. I walked through the entrance and looked around at the familiar scenery. I kept on walking, and when I came to the cabins, tears came to my eyes. That didn't usually happen, but I wiped them away as I spotted the cabins of Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hephaestus, Dionysus, Aphrodite, and Athena. My friends were all sleeping in one of them, along with my brother. I didn't bother to look in the windows. It was against the rules anyway, and I knew I wouldn't see the people I was looking for.

Walking through the camp, almost every building or place brought back a memory. The rock wall, the Big House, almost every cabin, the cafeteria area, the fire pit. Especially the fire pit. I sat down on one of the logs and remembered my first night sitting there with friends.

*another flashback*

_Lilibeth waved me over to her little group of friends. I walked up to them, and she introduced me. Of course, I already knew Jenna and Nico, but I had never seen the boys before. One of them had hair slightly more reddish than my own, and his eyes were a shade somewhere between hazel and brown._

_"My name's John. Son of Hephaestus." he said, and smiled. The other boy looked like he could fall asleep at any second, and he had sand-colored hair and light green eyes. Around a yawn, he said, "I'm Trey. My dad's... Dionysus."_

_Then everybody started laughing, singing songs, and telling stories. To be honest, the campfires were my favorite part of camp. The fire always changed color and size with the mood and tension of the stories and songs. It was amazing. Somehow, the Apollo kids ran out of songs to sing. I didn't even think that was possible, but like I've mentioned before, the universe likes proving me wrong. They asked if anybody had any ideas. Jenna jabbed me in the side with her elbow and gave me a look that said, "Come on, Katie, you know some good songs!" My friend knew that I could sing. I didn't believe it myself, but I had been told before that I had a beautiful voice. The problem was that I got terrified if I tried singing by myself in front of anyone besides my best friends._

_"Fine." I said. Jenna was the only person who knew what I was talking about. Luckily, no one heard me except John, Trey, Nico, Jenna, and Lilibeth. "I'll sing, but only if you do it with me."_

_"Sorry, but I don't know what song you have in mind."_

_I glared at her, and named my song._

_"Nope. Don't know it." Jenna smiled evilly, "You'll have to sing it yourself, unless someone else knows it."_

_"I know it!" offered Lilibeth, and I smiled gratefully._

_"Let's sing the song then." I decided, and shouted out, "'Firefly' by Ed Sheeran!"_

_"You lead us." said an Apollo kid. I looked at Lilibeth, and we started singing._

_"I fell in love next to you,_

_Burning fires in this room._

_It just fits_

_Light and smooth_

_Like the feet in my shoes._

_Little one, lie with me._

_Sew your heart on my sleeve._

_We'll stay quiet_

_Underneath shooting stars,_

_If it helps you sleep._

_And hold me tight_

_Don't let me breathe._

_Feeling like_

_You won't believe._

_There's a firefly_

_Loose tonight._

_Better catch it_

_Before it burns this place down._

_And I lie_

_If I don't feel right,_

_But the world looks better_

_Through your eyes."_

_The entire camp sang along with us, even if it took a few people some time to get the lyrics right. I had to admit, it was pretty fun. After that, other people shouted out songs, and they would lead the rest of us while we sang. We laughed so hard we cried, and we cried so hard we laughed. Then everyone went back to their cabins for the night._

*end of flashback*

That was it. I couldn't stand it anymore. Without thinking, I ran back to Thalia's pine tree and jumped back into the air. I propelled myself as fast as I could back toward Michigan. But while I flew, a thought hit me: Was I going back home, or was I actually leaving it?


	10. Back to Living With Mortals

The life of mortals is boring. I mean, I was fine with it when I thought I was a mortal myself, but after discovering I was a demigod, I don't know how I didn't die of boredom. Maybe I already _did_ die of boredom and whoever I was back then decided to be reborn? Hahahahahahahaha... no.

Anyway, I was bored half to death. But there were sort of good news! Turns out Hannah is also a demigod. I got a letter from her, which was weird, considering Hannah usually doesn't write letters, and it said:

_Dear Katie,_

_Guess what guess what guess what? You know that one book you were obsessing over about kids who were half person and half Greek god? Well, you'll never believe this. Turns out that stuff isn't fake! It's real! And here's the best part... wait for it..._

_I'M A DEMIGOD! _

_It's crazy, right? You're probably freaking out right now because you're so freaking obsessed with that series (or are there two? I can't remember). You are, right? Admit it. You're screaming and jumping up and down and just completely freaking out right now. Wait, do you even believe me? You think this is another one of those pranks, don't you? Trust me this time, alright? Because I am seriously not joking this time._ _I mean it. _

_Anyway, I'm at Camp Half-Blood and I'm stuck in a crowded cabin with a ton of other demigods. A bunch of them haven't been claimed by their parent yet. I wonder who mine is... There are some twins here (sons of Hermes, I think) who will NOT STOP pranking me! You probably recognize them from the books, but their names are Connor and Travis. Also, turns out Jenna and Courtney are demigods too! Jenna introduced me to a few other people here. One's a depressed kid named Nico, another is a girl named Lilibeth. Then there's two other guys named John and Trey. I have to admit, John's kinda cute! Trey is like half asleep all the time. He should seriously go to bed earlier or something._

_Well gotta go my hand's getting tired._

_From your best-est buddy in the world,_

_ Hannah __(a.k.a Swag Masta)_

If you were wondering about the "Swag Masta" part, Jenna, Hannah, and I all have nicknames. Jenna is Mermaid (I didn't realize the meaning of it until I knew she was a daughter of Poseidon), I was Supergirl, and as you can see, Hannah was Swag Masta. Anyway, I was not freaking out. Yes, I was freaking obsessed with that series, but I was not screaming and jumping up and down and just completely freaking out. I knew that Camp Half-Blood was real, and I was not, in fact, surprised that Hannah was a demigod. I also knew that it was not a prank. Yes, I recognized the Stoll twins, and yes, I knew that Jenna and Courtney were both demigods. And I knew that Nico was very depressed, that Trey needed more sleep, and that John and Lilibeth existed. So, I replied to Hannah's letter to tell her that.

_Dear Hannah,_

_Hi. No, I'm not freaking out. I don't think that was a prank, either. You know why? I believe you completely. Do you know why I believe you? No. You don't. _

_My point is, I already knew all of the things you put in your letter, except the fact that you're a demigod. This is because I'm one too. Didn't know that, did you? I would have told you before, but it wasn't safe. Don't ask why, because it's complicated. Not really, I just didn't think you would believe me if I didn't have proof. _

_I guess I technically had proof, considering I can prove that I'm a daughter of Zeus. Big shock, right? No pun intended, trust me. But yes, I can fly, and I can summon lighting. I also have a half-brother named Jason. Don't mess with him, unless you want to be skewered with a golden coin (don't ask, please). Okay, I didn't mean that. He wouldn't skewer with his his sword named Ivlivs. Yes, the golden coin is a sword. _

_I should stop talking about that. Anyway, I'm wondering who your godly parent could possibly be. There are a few that could be possible... I'm going to leave a space for you to think about that._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_GAH I'M SO BORED!_

_ Love ya (the friendly way),_

_ Katie (a.k.a Supergirl)_

_P.S. Don't you dare touch John. That one's mine._

I had no idea why I added that thing about John, but I had already written it down in pen, so I couldn't erase it, and I didn't want to scribble it out. Usually I'm fine with scratching things off of the page, but this time I figured Hannah would ask me what I had written at the end of my letter and I wouldn't have a good explanation. Pretty pathetic, I know, but even if I wasn't going to admit it out loud, there was a chance that I might have had the tiniest little bit of a crush on John. I hated myself for it because he was my friend, but I can't really help that I'm a girl who tends to fall for a lot of guys. It sucks. I know what you're thinking, I'm only going into seventh grade so I shouldn't get so worked up over boys, but I can't help it. I also hate it because usually I'd find out that they liked another girl or already had a girlfriend.

Dating at my age is pretty stupid, to be honest. It doesn't even make any sense. But people are dating anyway and don't even seem to care that they're a bit too young. Oh well, I guess it's a free country.


	11. Time For An Adventure

After a couple days of boring loneliness, Jenna came back to Middleville. I called her right away, and she came over. It was pretty exciting to see Jenna again, even if we had only been separated for about three days. She couldn't stay all day, of course, but for the three hours that she was at my house, we laughed and talked about all sorts of random things. We also ate lots of chocolate.

"So how was Camp without me?" I asked.

"Same people, same things to do, except you weren't there. Pretty boring, really." Jenna answered, popping a couple M&M's into her mouth.

"Any weird stuff happen?" I meant the dreams, and my friend looked like she understood.

"Well, besides the fact that John, Nico, and I couldn't sleep the night you left, no. Everything has been exactly how it usually is."

"Oh. Okay." I said. But what I didn't tell Jenna was that I couldn't sleep that night either. It was pretty strange that similar things kept happening to all four of us. There was a little bit of an awkward silence as Jenna and I were both lost in our thoughts.

"Well," Jenna finally broke the silence, "how's practicing going?"

"The thing is," I answered, "I can't really do much of anything without scaring my brother half to death. You know, since he's terrified of thunderstorms... and wind."

"Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot about that." Jenna apologized. "How about you show me your stuff?"

I agreed and stood up, walking down the hallway and out the back door, into my yard. Jenna followed. She just nodded to me, like "go ahead, whenever you're ready." The thing was, I wasn't ready at all. Of course my flying skills had improved, but I was still having trouble with summoning lightning. That was just a little bit of a problem. Deciding to try anyway, I forced my hands to spark and shot at a dandelion five feet away. I missed by about six inches and burnt the grass instead. Jenna just nodded encouragingly and told me to try again. So I did. Actually, I tried about ten more times. Each time I missed, and by the time I was done there was a circle of dead grass around the dandelion I had been trying to explode.

"Can you... um, can you do anything else? Besides exploding dandelions, I mean. That _was_ what you were trying to do, right? Jenna suggested.

"Yeah, that's what I was trying to do. I can do some fancy stuff in the air, but you've seen all that before. But..." I mentally rejected the idea. There was no way I could pull it off again, even though I had done it once before.

"But what?" my friend seemed genuinely curious.

"Never mind, it's a stupid idea."

"Oh, come on! I can tell you wanna try."

The truth was, I _really _wanted to try. "All right, but I really doubt it's going to work." I sat down in the grass and closed my eyes anyway, putting all of my energy into one thing. The more I focused, the more I believed in myself. Finally, I felt a surge of electricity rush through my body. Lightning blasted from my palms, forming a sphere around me. I floated barely an inch above the ground and brought my hands together. All of the individual blasts and streaks and sparks came together, starting to form another shape. Ever so slowly, the huge mass of electricity began to pulse and shrink, moving and changing until it finally took the form it was supposed to. Finally, with barely enough energy left, I smiled as I saw that the huge, violent orb of lightning had become something very delicate-looking.

I had created a small, blue-ish, electric butterfly. The insect flapped its wings gently and flew in circles around our heads. Jenna's eyes were wide, as if she were completely stunned. She probably was.

"H-how... how did you... I... j-just..." Jenna spluttered.

"I don't know how I did it. It's only happened once before. All I know... is that it's really hard."

"You- - you made it look so _easy_!" she exclaimed.

I was breathing a little heavily. "Well, it's not. And I don't even know why I'm able to do that. It's just... really weird."

"No kidding." Jenna agreed, "Hey, can we go in the pool?"

"Sure."

We splashed around for a little while, and laughed some more. Once, Jenna tried to flip me off of the floating raft I was laying on, but I jumped into the air at the last second and laughed at the shocked expression on her face. At some point we ended up battling a little with our powers, but Jenna definitely had the advantage. Really, she was kicking my butt. Then I got an idea. I grinned at my brilliance and stuck a hand in the water. But then a thought hit me: If I shot lightning into the water, would I seriously electrocute my friend? Before I could decide what to do, a wave hit me and I was knocked under the water... again.

At some point, the ladder got knocked out of the pool. Our pool was one of the blow-up ones, so we couldn't just climb out. That wasn't really a problem, though. I just flew out, and Jenna made the water lift her up and over the side. The slide she made retreated into the pool as soon as she touched the ground, and we pulled the ladder back in so my mom wouldn't get mad at us for leaving it out. At some point my butterfly had flown away.

By then, it was time for Jenna to go home, so we dried off (at least, I did) and said our goodbyes. After she left, I ate dinner and took a shower, then went to bed early.

* * *

That night, I had another nightmare. I dreamed that I was trapped inside a glass box, and it was so dark that I couldn't see a thing. Even though I pounded the walls as hard as I could with my fists and kicked them as well, I wasn't strong enough to shatter the glass. Eventually I gave up, and laughter surrounded me as the box was engulfed in flames.

I woke up covered in sweat and trembling from fear. Sitting up, I took a deep breath and got a drink from the water bottle on my desk. Then I saw a flicker of light outside my window. I turned my head and saw the lightning butterfly fluttering by in the darkness outside my window. Compelled to follow it, I stood and opened the window, crawling out once more. When I looked around, the butterfly had flown higher in the air, and was hovering above the flag pole in my neighbors' yard. I swooped up to it, but as soon as I got close, it fluttered off again. For a few seconds, I couldn't see the butterfly at all, and was looking around frantically until I spotted it in the air above the forest surrounding my house. Flying over to it, the tiny creature disappeared again, and the cycle began once more. Each time I spotted it, I went to where it was, and it would fly away, disappearing until I spotted it just out of sight. I kept following the butterfly until it left me at the doorstep of an old house that looked like it had been abandoned years ago. At first I thought that my butterfly might flutter off again, forcing me to continue following it, but the insect just hovered over my head.

Even though it was a pretty stupid decision, I knocked on the door. No one answered, and I knocked again. With no answer the second time, or the third, I opened the door and walked in.


	12. I'm Stuck Here Now

**I know I haven't updated in a while, and I'm really sorry about that. At the moment, I'm not quite sure exactly what I'm writing for this chapter, so it might be creepy and it might not. Anyway, keep reading, review, all that stuff. Thanks!**

* * *

When I opened the door of the house, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I felt unprepared for whatever was going to happen. Surprisingly enough, the inside of the house wasn't as crumbly or vine-covered as the outside. In fact, from the inside, the house didn't look abandoned at all! Everything was polished and sparkling clean. The snow-white furniture looked stiff, but sophisticated, and the golden railing of a staircase sparkled. Walking on tip-toe across the cold marble floor, I was careful not to touch anything. Looking around, I saw that the room I was in seemed to be a living room. A scratch-free mahogany coffee table had a cup of what looked like tea that had gone cold sitting on it. There was a fireplace in the shape of a perfect square, but all that was left of a warm fire was a small pile of smoldering ashes. Hestia would be have been disappointed.

Turning back around, I tried to open the door, but when I tried to turn the doorknob it was too slippery to hold on to. After a few attempts that resulted in failure, I finally got a firm grip on the doorknob and tried as hard as I could to turn it and open the door. The problem was, I had been locked in. Looking around, I saw that the staircase was the only way out of the room I was in. There weren't any windows or other doors that I could try to open. Then I spotted the butterfly.

My electric creation had landed on the coffee table, right next to the cup of tea. The first time I had looked at the table, the plain white mug was all I had seen. But when I looked a second time, I saw there was a piece of paper on the very edge of the table. It was folded in half and looked worn and tattered, like it had been ripped out of an old book. Not quite understanding what was going on, I walked to the table, shivering at the chilliness of the floor, and picked up the paper. My butterfly immediately flew to me and fluttered in front of the paper I was holding in my hands. Wondering what it was, I unfolded the paper, read the words scribbled on it, and immediately took a step back, dropping the paper.

Now I was very, very confused. Scrawled in the approximate middle of the paper were the four words, "you may need this." It was the paper that had come with my necklace at Camp. I hadn't worn the necklace since I left, and I hadn't even begun to wonder why it was so important. But now, I was wishing I had brought it with me. Maybe someone really was in this house, someone who could tell me what the necklace meant. Why else would that paper be here, and why else would I be led here by the butterfly?

Overcome by my curiosity, I picked up the paper and went up the staircase. At the top was a long hallway. It was dark, and maybe I was scared, or maybe I wasn't. I wasn't quite sure. Looking down the hallway, I saw a light coming from the end. It was as if the light was telling me to come closer, taking over my ability to decide. I took a few steps forward and then stopped. What if this was a trap? Maybe there were monsters in there, or perhaps just someone who wanted to kill me. I knew that I shouldn't take any chances, but I kept going anyway. The butterfly flitted just barely ahead of me, and I guess that convinced me to stop just outside the door. The light I had seen shone brightly from the gap underneath the door, and as I looked, I saw that the hallway was wider than it had seemed before. Off to the left side of the wall, the door was just barely cracked open, and I found that I could stand against the rest of the wall and listen to the voices that came from inside the room without being seen.

"But what about the girl? She could cause quite a few problems if we're not careful." said a voice that I guessed belonged to an old woman.

"The girl will not give us any problems. I can get her on our side without any trouble." the second voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite match it with a face.

"But what if your plan to get her 'on our side,' as you say, does not work?"

"It will, trust me. That girl will believe I am her friend, and even has feelings for the boy I've started pretending to be." Who _was_ this guy? I had no idea, but continued to listen. "And besides, if she doesn't completely agree with our plan, we have some help on our side that could, perhaps, persuade her to join us."

"I see," said the old woman, "There is a chance that your plan could work. But it will be... difficult to complete the task you have given me, especially if the girl has a part in it." Who was this girl they were talking about, and why was she so important? What were they planning to do, anyway?

"The girl will have no part in _your_ job. She will be helping me instead." While listening to the boy speak, I realized who he was. But it was impossible! He wouldn't be using me for something, would he? There was no way it could possibly be him, but it had to be... or did it? I was so confused, and lost in thought, that I didn't notice the door opening and two people walking out of the room. One of the people, a tall boy with red hair and broad shoulders, turned around and we locked eyes. When I saw the light brown shade of the boy's eyes, I knew that I had been right. My upsetting suspicions were confirmed, and I knew that the boy was John. He was planning something evil, but that was all I knew. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

"I see someone's been eavesdropping." said the old woman.

"Yes, and it's just the someone we've been talking about." John smiled and grabbed me by the wrist. "Come with us, I'll show you where you'll be staying for a while."

"Get your hands off of me, you- - you traitor!" I yelled. John looked amused when I tried to wrench my wrist out of his grasp. Even if I was the daughter of the most powerful of the gods, John was too strong for me. Even after all of my demigod training, I was a bit weaker than I should have been.

"Traitor? What do you mean, Katie? I'm still on your side! This woman was just trying to get me to join her and attack Camp Half-Blood!" I had to admit, John was a good actor, but that didn't mean I believed him.

"Yeah right," I spat, "I heard what you were saying in there."

"Oh. Well, if you say so, I guess you _will _be staying with us for quite a while." John kept a firm grip on my wrist and dragged me past the doors in the hallway and down the stairs.

When we got to the bottom of the staircase, John still firm, and me still fighting against him (it was pointless, I'm afraid), I was led across the cold marble floor and to the front door. John used his free hand to turn the knob, and I gasped when I saw that instead of the overgrown grass and weeds that were outside, we were facing another staircase, going down. John didn't even let go of me when I was pushed forward, and forced to take a few steps down the stairs. Unfortunately, John stood still at the top and still didn't let go.

John pushed me again, but still didn't move from his place at the top of the staircase. Now, I was pretty much dangling on the fifth step down, yelling at John to let go of my wrist so I could actually stand up straight. He just smirked and held on. After about five minutes of that nonsense, I was ready to blow.

"John, will you just let me go?" I said, not really shouting, but with the same tension and anger in my voice that a shout usually has.

"Sure." John said grinning, with a mischievous look in his eye. He pushed me once more, but this time, he let go, and I tumbled face first down the staircase. When I landed at the bottom I tried to stand up, but that made me dizzy (I had hit my head pretty hard a few times), so I fell back down and just glared at John while he laughed.

"What can I say? You told me to let go." John said and slammed the door, still laughing. His cold laughter echoed in my mind, and I struggled to stand, ignoring the spots in front of my eyes, and felt along the wall in the darkness. I followed the wall until I spotted a light shining far away. Stumbling a little as I walked, I felt my way towards the light until it was right in front of me.

The pale golden light came from a candle, and from what I could see, it was the only one around. I sat down on the cold floor underneath the candle, which was mounted on the wall, and thought about what had just happened. John and this old woman, whoever she was, were planning an attack on Camp Half-Blood, and I had something to do with it. They had a plan to get me on their side but since I had overheard the conversation John had thrown me down in the basement, saying that I would be staying there for a while. How long did he mean? A day? A week? A month, or even a year or two? However long it was supposed to be, I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

Then I heard a noise. It was the sound of metal being hit against metal. The noise went on for about thirty seconds, and then the sound of a door opening, along with rushed footsteps. There was a muffled scream, one more clang, and all was silent. Of course I was curious, but I was too scared to stand up and see what had happened. Instead, I shouted, "Who's there? Is anyone down here?" All I heard was a soft whimper, nothing more.

"What's going on? Are you hurt?" I asked a little frantically. There was no answer, only silence. I was scared.

* * *

Throughout the night, I sat shivering on the dirt floor, leaning against the wall. I couldn't sleep, but it wasn't like I wanted to. Sure, I was tired, but there was no way I would lose focus in a place like this. There had to be a way out, and I was determined to find it. At least, after I figured out why I had been taken here in the first place. Plus, I had plenty of things on my mind to think about before I could decide how I would escape.

Even if I had been thrown down in the basement of an old house, held captive by an old woman and a boy who I thought was my friend, I wasn't very confused anymore. I needed to get out, and figure out what had happened that had changed John so much.

Then I thought of something. While I was listening to that conversation upstairs, John had said something about pretending to be a boy that I apparently had 'feelings' for. I guess that meant I liked someone, and John was pretending to be that person. But who was it? John certainly didn't seem like himself, but I definitely didn't have a crush on anyone, especially not a mean boy who laughed when I was in pain and made plans to attack my second home. It just didn't make any sense!

After thinking about that for longer than I wanted to, I still hadn't figured out what John meant by it. So instead, I started thinking of how to get out of here. I'd have to get food at some point if I mattered so much for their plan, right? So someone would have to bring it down, and when they did, I could slip up the stairs and get out the door, locking them down in the basement when I did. Then, I could find a window or something and climb out of that! It was a perfect plan, but after what I assumed was the rest of the night and a whole day passed by, I realized that I had a problem: These people weren't bringing me food, and I was going to starve to death.

By the end of that time, I felt defeated. I was starving, with no way of escaping my prison. Camp was going to be attacked, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. To make matters worse, every couple hours a monster would show up without any warning and I was attacked with barely any defense. I could still fly, but not as well as usual, and my sword never showed up at the right moment.

The first monster that tried to kill me came early in the morning, and happened to be a very large heck hound. It was about the size of a semi truck so I had no idea how it had gotten in, but it was smarter than the two heck hounds I had fought before. The giant black dog swung a huge paw at my head, but I jumped out of the way before it could hit me. The heck hound continued to attack, kicking and biting, and I somehow managed to not get hurt. At some point I ended up on the dog's back and held on tight while praying that my sword would turn up soon. The heck hound ran around, snarling and trying to shake me off its back, but I somehow held on. Eventually I felt a lump in the pocket of my pajama shorts and pulled out a wind-up car. I twisted the little crank and the car transformed into my sword, glowing in the darkness. I drove the blade into the heck hound's neck, causing it to vaporize into gold dust, and dropped to the ground.

I dropped my sword, but it stayed a two-foot-long blade of celestial bronze, and sat back on the floor. Then I noticed the soot that had appeared on my hands, and a shallow cut right above my ankle. I didn't have any ambrosia, but I wasn't hurt too badly, so I didn't really mind.

Throughout the rest of the day, I was attacked by more monsters, including two basilisks, a chimera, a manticore, a hydra, and much more. In an encounter with the hydra, I was thrown across the room and landed hard on my right shoulder. After that, my shoulder hurt, and the pain gradually spread down my arm. I had cuts all over, on my arms, legs, and torso. I was pretty sure that I had also scraped up my face, because when I touched my cheek, my fingertips were covered in blood. By that time I had gotten used to the searing pain in my shoulder and the aching feeling I got whenever I stood up, the monsters had stopped coming.

I was relieved that I was no longer being attacked, but I was still nervous that more might happen. While thinking about all the problems that I might face, I didn't wonder once about John, or Camp, or even how I was going to get out of the house.

Somehow, I slept. I didn't remember falling asleep, but I opened my eyes and woke up after a while. I was still laying underneath the candle, but I had no idea what time it was, or even if it was day or night. The basement of the house was as dark as it had been before, and I hadn't seen any windows at all.

After I sat up and realized that I wasn't in as quite as much pain as before, I looked at myself. I was dirty, and I still hurt all over, but I had stopped bleeding, at least. When I looked around in the dim light, I saw spots of blood on the floor and shuddered, realizing it was my own blood that I was looking at.

When I decided that there weren't any monsters in the shadows, I decided to explore a little. If I was going to be held captive, I might as well be familiar with the dungeon I was in. It was the best way to decide how I was going to escape, if I was going to get out of there at all.

Standing up, I followed the wall and walked around, looking for a window or exit of some sort. Of course I could use the door, but I didn't know where that was anymore. Really, I was completely lost. So, I continued to follow the wall until I walked straight into something. I was in the dark, so I was pretty much blind, but I felt around and discovered that I had found thick metal bars. Using my hands, I kept following the wall of bars until I came to what I assumed was a gate. I pulled on the gate, but it was locked. I felt around and found a lock, but the keyhole was empty. Still hopeful, I felt around on the dirt floor, searching for the key. Even if I didn't find what I was looking for, I heard footsteps and stood up, feeling hopeful when I saw a dim light bobbing down the hallway. When I saw who was coming, however, I was greatly disappointed.

"What do you want from me? Why am I here, John?" I said angrily. My voice came out weaker sounding than I had planned, but I wasn't very surprised. John just laughed.

"You really think that I'm your precious little boyfriend, don't you? Looks can be very deceiving, you know." Then, the unexpected happened. The gate holding me in my little prison opened, and I spotted a tiny key on the ground. John- -at least, that's who I thought it was- -grabbed me by the shoulder, sending bullets of pain all the way down my arm, and pulled me forward. I fell down, and saw the key right next to my hand. I reached for it, and the cold metal was a bit of a shock against my palm.

"Get up, you stupid girl!" John shouted. He grabbed my shoulder again and shoved me through the gate opposite mine. I stumbled and landed on the floor again, and the gate slammed shut behind me. Turning around, I saw John looking through the bars.

"I'm not who you think I am, you know." he said.

"Shut _up, _you idiot!" I yelled.

"Nah, I'd rather not."

"I hate you, John!"

"Well, say that to this guy." John- - or whoever the guy in front of me was- - lifted an arm, and the room was illuminated. Sitting in the corner was a boy, with red hair and a stocky build. His head was on his knees, and his arms were wrapped around his legs. The boy was covered in dirt, without shoes, and his jeans were ripped up at the knees, but I recognized him immediately.

I was still a little confused about exactly what was going on, but it didn't take anything more for me to realize that the boy in the corner was the real John, and the one at the gate was a fake. Thinking about it, I should have realized this sooner. Of course the phony sounded like John, but something in his voice hadn't been right. Of course, the fake had called me stupid and been a complete jerk, which was completely unlike the real John, so I didn't know why I hadn't realized it sooner.

"You, are a fake, and a jerk!" I shouted, turning to Fake John, "Did you seriously think that I would believe you were the real John? There is no way that I am ever joining you, or helping you in any way at all! I hate _you, _not John, and I will never, ever, let you attack Camp Half-Blood! You know what I can do, and you know that I can ruin your plans if I figure out how, so why are you even trying to hold me in here? I'll get out, and there's nothing you can do to hold me back! I will fight, and I will not let you do this! You can't- -" Suddenly, I was cut off. I tried to keep talking, but I couldn't. Fake John laughed.

"You see, I _can _hold you in here, and I will attack your precious camp. There is not a single way to get out of here without my help, so you will never escape." he said, "Goodbye! I hope you enjoy your stay here. At least, until you're dead."

I ignored his last comment and faced the wall as he walked back up the stairs. When I heard the door open and shut, I took the few steps forward that I needed to and crouched down next to John. I lightly touched his shoulder and he looked up. Our eyes met, and John gasped.

"Katie?" John whispered. I nodded, and he smiled just a little. Then, he did something I didn't expect at all. John started to cry. His shoulders shook, and his face ended up in his hands. I didn't really know what to do, or what to say.

"Um... what happened? Are- - are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, I... I'm fine now, I guess. It's just... I thought I'd never see you again. I didn't think I'd ever see _anyone_ again! And now, seeing you like this... I don't know, I guess I was just scared. And kind of worried, but you know..." John wiped away a tear and I realized just how awful I must have looked. I was in my pajamas from two nights ago, covered in dirt, with scratches and scrapes all over. There were probably plenty of bruises too.

"Well, I... I'm sure I don't look any better than you do. Are you hurt?" I asked.

"No, I'm fine. But are you alright?" John seemed pretty concerned.

"I'm fine. Just a few scrapes, and it doesn't hurt too bad. Except..."

"Except what? What is it?"

"Just got tossed around a little, that's all. My shoulder's kinda sore, but it's nothing serious. I'm fine, really."

"Let me see." John said, gesturing to my shoulder. I sighed and pulled up the sleeve of my t-shirt. John's eyes widened a little, and I glanced at the place he was looking at. I immediately realized how badly injured I was. The skin was purple and black, and there was a bit of dried blood in a couple spots. A cut ran along the shoulder, and it looked like it was just beginning to heal.

"Fine? You call that _fine_?" John said.

"I'm sorry, I just... didn't realize it was that bad."

"Here, I've got some ambrosia." John took a little plastic baggie from his pocket and handed me a square. It was pretty squished, but I didn't mind. As soon as I popped it in my mouth, I felt a little better. I watched as the bruises on my shoulder faded a little, and the cut went away. After a couple minutes the bruises were almost gone, and the pain had gone away.

"Thanks, um... so, what do we do now?" I asked.

"I don't really know. I've been stuck in here for a while, but I've got no idea exactly how long. It's not a nice place, if you hadn't noticed."

"Oh, I've noticed. I've been in here for a while too. Maybe a couple days, but no more than two or three. Do you even know what this place is?"

"Nope. But at least we're not completely alone here. I mean... we've got each other, right?"

"Yeah. We've... got each other."

John blushed. "I just made this really awkward, didn't I?" I smiled. "Just a little bit."


	13. Try Again

**Hey guys, I'm going to be at a camp for two weeks, so after today I probably won't be able to update until I get back home. I'll try to write as much as I can today, but you'll have to wait a while for anything more than what I can pack in today. Sorry!**

* * *

Being stuck in the basement was even less exciting than living with mortals had been. Monsters still attacked every now and then, so both John and I got a couple minor injuries. Neither of us got hurt too bad, so we were fine- -for a while.

We had no sense of time down there, so we never knew if it was day or night, or even how long we had been there. Of course we got tired, considering we had to battle monsters in almost complete darkness without any food or water. Sometimes one of us would sleep while the other kept watch for any type of danger, and then we would switch places.

Once, I was taking a nap while John kept watch, and had a pretty weird dream. In it, I was walking through a maze (it might have been the labyrinth, but I wasn't sure) and it just kept going on and on, never ending or coming to an exit of any kind. There was nothing but walls, the floor, and the ceiling. When I woke up, John was beating the heck out of a heck hound. It was slightly smaller than the one I had fought, but definitely meaner than the other one. Relentlessly, it bit, scratched, and chased John in circles, but then he jumped on the heck hound's back (I was surprised, because that was the same thing I had done) and sliced its head clean off. _Ew. _

"Oh, you're up!" John exclaimed. He seemed pretty happy, even though he had a bleeding cut across his forehead and was covered in gold monster dust, not to mention his clothes were ripped in a few spots and he was extremely dirty. I guess I would be happy to see a friend after defeating a monster, but it was pretty weird to see John smiling again after all that had happened.

"Yeah. Good job, um, slicing the thing's head off, I guess." I said. I wasn't sure if I was giving him a compliment, but it didn't seem like an insult either.

"So, ah... did you have any dreams?" John asked.

"Of course I did. The average human has six to nine dreams every night, we just don't remember them." I didn't know why I said that, but I did anyway.

"Well, if I know you, you're anything but average." John looked at the ground and blushed, obviously embarrassed.

"Oh, uh, thanks. We should get that cut on your forehead to stop bleeding." I quickly changed the subject and he remembered the heck hound, not mentioning the compliment again.

* * *

After his head stopped bleeding, we sat on the floor, leaning against the wall. Neither of us said anything, and we just sat in the silence. It wasn't as awkward as usual, basically just quiet. Then I remembered a dream I had had a while ago.

"Hey John?" I asked, and he looked up, "Can I tell you something?" he nodded, and I said, "Well, back at Camp I had a dream. And dreams always mean something when you're a demigod, right?"

"Of course they do. What's your point?"

"Well, in the dream I was trapped in a glass box, and I couldn't get out. No matter how hard I kicked or punched, the glass wouldn't break. I kept fighting, but eventually I got tired and finally gave up. Then I- -I died, basically. The box... it was engulfed in flames." John looked surprised, but told me to finish telling the story. So I did.

"I think that this place, this house we're stuck in, is the glass box. And we've been fighting to get out, right? I think that maybe we need to keep trying. We have to, because if we give up, we'll die."

"I think you're right. But at the same time it sounds like one of those inspirational speeches that end up making you feel uninspired. You know, like 'hey kids, you better keep trying, because if you give up you're gonna die!'" John said the last part in an extremely enthusiastic voice, and I laughed. It felt good to finally laugh again.

"It's pretty boring down here, isn't it?" I said, "I mean, there's nothing to do except battle monsters. Not to mention the lack of food."

"There's got to be _something _we could do. Of course, we could look for a way out, but that hasn't gotten us anywhere so far. I know we should keep trying, but maybe we need a little break. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah... a break might be a good idea. What do you think we should do?" I asked. John just shrugged. I didn't have any ideas either. "Okay, maybe we shouldn't take a break. But how _are_ we going to get out?"

"You said there was a lock on the gate, right?" John asked.

"Maybe we could pick the lock!" I was getting excited.

"You just read my mind." John and I walked along the wall until we found the gate. "It's not a combination lock, and there's no keypad of any kind." he said.

"Yeah, I know. I told you that already."

"Man, Leo's tool belt would be really helpful right now." John complained.

"Well, what do we have? I've got a hair tie and two bobby pins, plus my sword. What have you got in your pockets?" John emptied out the pockets of his jeans, and I was astonished at all there was. Looking at all of the random objects, I saw that he had a few rubber bands, some paper clips, a map of Camp, a bottle cap, some string, five buttons, a pencil, two erasers, a small pack of sticky notes, a LEGO brick, the cap to a marker, two pennies, a couple water balloons, one of those sticky hand things, a band aid, and a tiny plastic Superman figurine. Basically, I was speechless.

"Yeah, I know it's a lot. But we've got to use what we have to get out of here!"

"Okay... can you pick locks?" I asked.

"Of course I can! What do I look like, a child of Aphrodite? Here, give me that paperclip." I handed John the paper clip and he bent it around a little, then wiggled it into the lock. Then John twisted the clip, and I heard a small click. But instead of the gate opening, the paperclip shot out of the lock and hit the wall, shattering into a bunch of little pieces.

"Well, then! Let's try the bobby pin." I said. That also flew as far away as it could get from the lock, hit the wall, and snapped in half. Then John tried the other bobby pin. Unfortunately, it melted.

"Great. The lock's magic." John grumbled.

"At least we tried, right?" I was trying to be optimistic. John looked at me with a sort of gleam in his eye.

"My mom always told me," John smiled, "'If at first you don't succeed, try try again.'"


	14. The Glass Box

**I'm back! Sorry I had to be gone so long, but I'm finally able to update again! Thank you so much for being patient, and I can't wait to write more! Please review, I hope you like the chapter!**

* * *

Even though John and I had tried for what seemed like hours, nothing happened to the lock. It was obviously magic, so the only way to unlock it must be a key. Up until that moment, I had forgotten about the tiny silver key I found on the basement floor. It might not be the right key, but it was a chance of escape, and I was willing to try it. But when I stuck my hand into my pocket, there was nothing there except my sword, in the form of a Sharpie marker. There wasn't a hole in my pocket, so it couldn't have fallen out, either. The key had practically vanished into thin air.

I didn't tell John about this. He was already upset, and I didn't want him to get any more frustrated. But I kept my eyes open, looking for the key, just in case. Later, I found John back in the corner, looking completely defeated.

"It's no use, Katie," he said, "No matter what we try, nothing works! There's no way we can get that thing unlocked, so the gate's never going to open!" I opened my mouth to object, but John stopped me. "Look, I don't care about what you said about that dream! There's no way we'll ever get out of here. I give up."

Obviously, that was the wrong thing for him to say. It wasn't very bright, but I saw a tiny spark down at the other end of the room. Slowly, the line of fire spread. It started coming towards us, getting faster and faster, branching off occasionally. Of course, John wasn't paying any attention.

"John, get up! We need to get out!" I shouted, tugging on his arm.

"Just leave me alone, will you?"

"It matters this time! If you don't get up now, we're gonna die!" I was getting pretty desperate.

"We'll just die anyway." John mumbled. All of a sudden, the heat rose. I turned and the fire was just barely a foot away from me. I tried to get out of the way, but my feet were stuck in place. I was terrified, and couldn't move at all.

The fire was ten inches away... eight... six... suddenly John realized what was happening and stood up. Four inches... the heat was right in front of my face. I squeezed my eyes shut, ready to die, and... and I was pushed out of the way.

I landed on the rough floor and turned to see John about to burn. The fire reached his side.

"NO!" I screamed. John couldn't die, he couldn't! I was prepared for the worst, but the fire passed right through John's body. Then he just stood up like nothing had happened. Astonished as I was, I followed him through the maze of fire, dodging bursts of flame and trying my hardest to stay low to the ground. John wasn't harmed by the flames, so it wasn't nearly as hard for him to get to the gate as it was for me. I was sweating a ton in the sweltering heat, and just barely made it to the gate. John rattled the bars while I sat next to him, coughing from all the smoke.

Then, just as the heat began to rise even more, I felt a tiny weight in my pocket.

"John," I managed to croak, "the lock, I..." The corners of my vision were beginning to fade. John turned towards me and crouched on the ground.

"What is it? What do you- -" Just then, a burst of flame shot right at us! Once again, I was ready to burn and die, but I didn't because of John. He quickly moved in front of the fire and wrapped his arms around me, keeping me safe so I wouldn't get burned.

It was pretty awkward, but I was grateful that John was being my human shield. I could feel extreme heat moving around us, and for a second fire was everywhere. If either John or I moved, I would be burnt and turned into a pile of ash and bones. That would really suck.

The flames passed, but neither of us moved. John and I just sat there, his arms around me, my head against his chest. Again, it was pretty awkward.

We still needed to get out, and I had a key. I cleared my throat, squirming a little, and John remembered what was happening. He stood up and went back to studying the lock. Without him there, I felt cold, even though I was stuck in a room full of fire.

I stood, and immediately regretted it. Smoke filled my lungs, and I was overcome with another coughing fit. "I have... a key..." I said. John spun around, shocked, and asked, "Where is it? Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

I dug the key out of my pocket and handed it to him. It looked even tinier sitting on the palm of my hand, but John took it anyway and hurried to the lock.

"Katie, this isn't going to work. It's way too small!" he said. I was still coughing like crazy, and my vision was going blurry again.

"Just... try..." I said. That was all I could say. John took a deep breath and shoved the tiny key into the lock. From what I could see, the key really _was _too small, but it grew to the right size and turned all on its own. Over the crackling of the fire, I heard a click, and the gate burst open. John looked astonished, but he walked out and towards the stairs. I managed to follow.

The two of us ran up the stairs and opened the door, going into the living room. The door slammed behind us and opened again, leading outside. We hurried out the door, but this time it didn't close. We turned around just in time to see the living room being set on fire. The flames were spreading.

John and I ran as fast as we could away from the house, but we didn't get far before my sports asthma started to kick in. Stupid asthma. I slowed down, struggling to breathe normally.

"Can't... go any... farther." I gasped.

"Not even walking?" John asked.

"I'll... try... can't... fly though."

"You sure?" John seemed concerned. I nodded. We started walking, but it was definitely difficult for me.

Obviously, we weren't moving very fast, because I would have to stop every now and then to catch my breath, and if we tried to run I would only last for about a minute before we had to walk again. After about ten minutes of this, John sighed. Then he randomly lifted me up, piggy-back style, and started running with me on his back.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" I shouted. My lungs had recovered, but I was very startled.

"You're slowing us down. We need to get as far away from that house as fast as we can, and we weren't getting anywhere. So now I'm going to carry you and get us away faster." John said. It obviously wasn't as awkward for him as it was for me.

"Wait, stop!" I shouted. John didn't slow down. I was getting annoyed. "I CAN FLY NOW, YOU IDIOT!"

"Oh."

"Yeah. You're not afraid of heights or anything, are you?" I asked.

"No." John said.

"Good." I grabbed John by the elbow and jumped into the air... with a little difficulty. John was a lot heavier than he looked, and I had a lot of trouble holding him up. Of course, his weight kept me from getting as high as I wanted to, but it was better than not flying at all. At least, it was a little better than running and stopping every two minutes.

"You... are really heavy. You know that, right?" I said to John. He didn't answer. When I looked down at John, his mouth was open just a tiny bit, and his eyes were wide in a look of pure awe. I guess I had gotten so used to the view from the sky that I wasn't amazed anymore. But John's expression made me realize just how beautiful the world could be from above. The ground beneath us looked like silk in the pale moonlight, and the burning house far off in the distance was like a spot of sunlight. John and I continued to soar above the ground, and the occasional trees grew into a forest, which looked like a thick velvet blanket that stretched across the ground. I had finally gotten close to the height I usually flew at, but I could tell that the high altitude freaked John out a little and it was getting harder for him to breathe. I had forgotten that my lungs weren't affected by the thin air higher up in the sky, but I slowed down and flew a bit lower for John's sake.

"This is amazing!" John exclaimed all of a sudden. The wind ruffled his hair, and I had to admit, he was pretty cute. I smiled to myself, but didn't say anything.

After a while of flying, John and I were still above a forest, and things were starting to look vaguely familiar. Of course, John didn't recognize anything, but he had never seen my house or even my neighborhood before. Eventually I dropped us in my backyard, and John and I sat in the cold grass. It was obviously late at night, but I wasn't sure what time it was or even how long I had been gone.

"You can get home okay, right?" I asked John after a while of silence.

"Is it... is it okay if I stay here tonight?" he asked.

"Oh. Yeah, it's fine. We better get inside though, it's kind of cold out here." John followed me onto the back porch, and I slid open the slider door and we slipped inside. It was incredibly dark inside the kitchen, but I led John around the table, down the hallway, and into my bedroom. I closed the bedroom door behind me, and John and I sat on the bed. Neither of us turned on a light, we just sat there in the darkness, not saying anything. It wasn't as awkward as silence usually is, it was just quiet.

I never remembered falling asleep, but both of us drifted off at some point, and I woke up in my bed with the sun shining through the window and onto my face. The rays of light were broken by the branches of the trees outside my bedroom, but they lit up the room. Rubbing my eyes, I sat up.

"John?" I said groggily, looking around the room. There was no one there. But something caught my eye. Stuck to my closet door was a sticky note. I swung my legs out of bed and shakily stood up , then walked over to my closet and pulled off the small piece of paper. Scrawled on the sticky note in messy handwriting were the words, "Katie: Had to leave. Very important. Don't come back to camp. ~John" It was definitely curious, but I was sure that if John really had to leave, he wouldn't have lied about the situation being important. I wished he could have stayed, but it didn't matter. I left the note from John on my desk and went into the kitchen for breakfast.


	15. This Doesn't Feel Right

**I'm not quite sure how this chapter will work out, but I'm still trying. Thank you guys so much for favoriting/following, all that stuff. I love it when you guys review, because I like to know what other people think of what I write, and don't be afraid to post flames! They would be really helpful (plus they can be funny sometimes), and that way I can know what to do to improve this story, and my skills as an author. Enjoy! Oh yeah, one other thing: Throughout this story, I've said John's hair was curly. Well, it's not. Whoops!**

* * *

I am very clumsy in the first few hours that I'm awake. Rubbing my eyes, I stumbled down the hallway and into the kitchen, where my mom was making pancakes.

"Katie, you're back! I was starting to get a little worried." My mom said, giving me a hug.

"Mom, what's the date? How long have I been gone?" I asked. My mom definitely didn't look like she had been worried, but I had to have been gone for at least a week, or maybe even two.

"It's the twenty-first, sweetheart. You've only been gone a day. I figured you were fine, just off on one of your top-secret spy missions with your demigod friends."

"Mom, it's nothing to joke about, and we're not spies! It's not even secret, really, and I was _not_ fine! I was stuck with John in the basement of an ancient house, and we got attacked by a bunch of monsters, and we didn't have any food or water so I had this horrible headache, and we were hungry without any food to eat, and the people holding us captive were crazy! There was an old lady, and some guy who looked just like John, but he wasn't John, and it felt like I was down there _forever_, but then how could I have been gone for just- -" I had so much to say I was speaking in run-on sentences, but there was just so much and it was all so confusing.

"Whoa, slow down," my mom interrupted me, "I'm sure it's not as bad as you're making it sound. You're extremely dirty though. Go take a shower, and please, try not to use all of the hot water."

Just so you know, I have a bad habit of taking really long showers, but my mom had a point. I was absolutely filthy, covered from head to toe with dirt and a little bit of ash. I went into the bathroom and took a shower, obviously. The hot water was very refreshing, even if it took time and a lot of soap to get all of the dirt off of my skin. When I was done I dried off, brushed my hair, and put some clean clothes on. My pajamas had gotten ripped, dirty, and burned in a couple places, so there was no point in keeping them. I tossed the shorts and old t-shirt into the trash and walked out into the kitchen.

While I had been in the shower, my mom had finished the pancakes, and my brother (who had a drop of syrup on his chin, I noticed) was nearly done eating. Since the rest of the pancakes had gotten cold, I grabbed two, put them on a plate, and stuck it in the microwave. After thirty quick seconds, there was that annoying beeping sound, and I was ready to eat.

Even though it had only been a day since I had eaten, I was starving. If you really want to know, I ate five pancakes, two yogurt cups, and a banana. I have a very large appetite, if you hadn't noticed.

"Oh, Katie," My mom said suddenly, "Earlier, when you were blabbering about your little adventure, I couldn't really understand most of what you said. But, I did catch a name. Who's this John you mentioned?"

"John is..." I hesitated for some reason I didn't know, "John is just a friend, that's all." Of course I was telling the truth, but something didn't feel right about what I said. Something stirred at the back of my mind, but I had no idea what it was. _Oh well, _I thought, and decided to save the war between my thoughts for later.

When I went back to my bedroom, I noticed something. My window was open just a crack (I had left it that way before following the butterfly) and it had let in a slight breeze, which had caused the note from John to flutter off of my desk. I saw there was something scribbled on the back. Picking up the sticky note, I saw it was a tiny heart with two initials inside of it. The letters were smudged, so I couldn't tell what they were, but there was something mysteriously familiar about the drawing. I got that same feeling as I had gotten earlier, when I was telling my mom who John was. Something was poking at the back of my mind, but I had no idea why this little drawing was so familiar, in a weird way. It could have been the shape of the heart, or the thickness of the pencil lines, maybe even how the initials were smudged.

This was definitely weird. Something about saying that John was just a friend, then seeing this tiny drawing, made me feel like there was something I was supposed to remember, but had forgotten. Then I thought of something else. Before I had created my electric butterfly for Jenna, I had said I had made the same thing once before. Strangely enough, when I had said that I felt like I was telling the truth, but I had never created a butterfly out of lightning before that day. Weird, right?

Anyway, I sat down on my bed and started reading a book, but I couldn't concentrate on the pages. My mind kept drifting, and I kept getting reminded of John, Camp Half-Blood, the heart drawing, my lightning butterfly, and a bunch of other stuff related to being a demigod. Giving up on reading, I picked up the note from John again and studied the drawing some more.

After a few minutes, I still couldn't think of what was so familiar about a tiny little smudged heart. It was frustrating not to know. There was something strange going on, that was clear, but I couldn't figure out exactly what it was.

Later that night, when I fell asleep, I dreamed about some pretty weird stuff. It wasn't clear if it was all one dream or a bunch of really short ones, but it went sort of like this:

_I was walking down one of the hallways at my school. John was walking next to me. We were obviously looking for something, but I didn't know what it was.__ Then I heard a scream coming from one of the other hallways, and I started running towards the source of the noise._

The dream faded, and I was in a completely different place.

_Looking around, I saw that I was sitting on the couch in Jenna's living room. Annabeth, Percy, and John were there too. The door leading outside hadn't been shut completely, and it was open just a little bit. I stood up and looked out the window, into the backyard. Jenna and Nico were both out there, and Nico was walking toward the woods at the edge of Jenna's yard. Jenna was following him, and she grabbed the sleeve of Nico's jacket. It came off, and Jenna put it on. Nico stopped and turned around. Jenna started running, and Nico chased her. He obviously wanted his jacket back, and he was angry that Jenna wouldn't give it to him. _

_It all happened so fast. Before I knew what was going on, both Jenna and Nico were on the ground. Then they stood up and pulled out their swords, starting to charge towards each other._

Just like the first two scenes, the next was very strange.

_I was on an island. It was a strange island, but it was still an island. A huge sea monster was attacking, and when I looked down, I saw that I was in the air. My sword was in my hand, and I was fighting another monster. I couldn't tell what kind of monster it was, but Nico and John were on the ground fighting the giant sea serpent. Nico looked tired, but that might have just been how it looked from the sky. John was shooting fire at the monster, which I hadn't known he was able to do. Jenna ran out onto the beach, coming out from the forest, and started battling the monster too. _

_All of a sudden, something hit me on the head, and I started to fall, slowly, then faster and faster, till I hit the ground. The last thing I saw was a burst of flame and water splashing everywhere, then I blacked out._

After that, something less strange (but still mysterious) entered my mind.

_My pen made quiet scratching noises as I doodled on the white paper. I was drawing in the back of a black notebook, sitting on the top of a bunk bed with black covers and black pillows. It was strange, that was for sure, but everything seemed normal. I set down the black pen and looked at what I had drawn. It was a little black heart, with the initials J + K inside._

_Then Jenna sat next to me. I hadn't noticed her climbing up the ladder, so I was a little startled. "Whatcha drawing?" Jenna asked. I slammed my notebook shut and shoved it in the bag hanging on the side of my bunk. _

_"Nothing." I said. Jenna left, and I took the notebook back out, flipping to the page I was drawing on. When I looked, I sighed. The ink letters in my heart had been smudged, and I couldn't read them anymore. _

The room faded, and I was at camp.

_Everyone was putting their armor on, and we all had our weapons ready for battle. What was going on? Then the crowd of demigods moved out of the building we were in, and I was swept out with them. Everybody got into battle formations, obviously to fight something bad, but what was it, and when was it going to show up? I had thought too soon. _

_Tons of monsters emerged from the forest, and more had somehow gotten through the border. They were led by something- -or someone- -but I couldn't tell who it was. All I knew was that something bad had happened, and things were about to get worse._

I opened my eyes, my heart racing, and remembered I was still in my own bed back in Michigan. Daylight was just starting to break through the shadows of the night, and I was sweating like crazy, even though my room was freezing cold.


	16. Hidden Answers

**First of all, I made some changes to chapter 15, so if you read that before today (August 12), go reread it. Sorry about that! Second of all, I plan on ending this story sometime soon. There WILL be a sequel, and I really look forward to writing that.  
Anyway, keep reading, reviewing, all that stuff. Thank you, and I hope you like this chapter!**

* * *

Tons of thoughts were running through my head as I ate breakfast. What did those dreams from last night mean? Why did I feel like something was missing? Who was Fake John from that weird house, and what was going on with that old lady? Was Fake John the old lady's servant or something? Camp Half-Blood wasn't really going to be attacked, was it? Even though I was thinking all of those things, my main question was, _What the heck is going on here? _

I knew it was normal for weird things to happen to demigods, but something really strange was going on. What I obviously needed to do was get some answers, but who was I supposed to ask? I could only think of one person- -well, one centaur. He could tell me what was going on, right?

Rushing a little, I changed into my camp t-shirt and some shorts, then brushed my hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. I didn't care that my hair was messy, I just didn't want it in my face. Trust me, it's easier to fly if your hair isn't blowing everywhere. I slipped on a pair of shoes, grabbed the necklace from Zeus, and ran out into the kitchen, where my mom was washing the dishes. I didn't know where Lee was, but I assumed he was at a friend's house or something.

"Bye Mom!" I shouted, opening the slider door.

"Katie, why are you leaving? You just got back!" my mom exclaimed.

"Exactly." I said, and quickly closed the door before I jumped into the air and started flying toward Camp Half Blood. Obviously, I knew how to get there. I had only flown to camp from my house once before, but it wasn't difficult this time.

When I spotted Camp Half-Blood from the air, I hesitated. Hadn't John's note said _not _to go back? I wondered why he didn't want me at camp for a second, but then I decided that if I wanted answers, this was the only place I would get them. Dropping from the sky, I landed next to Thalia's tree and walked through the boundary.

Almost immediately, John spotted me and ran over. "What are you doing here? Didn't you get my note?" he said, seeming genuinely concerned.

"Of course I got the note, John," I said, "But something weird is going on. I've got tons of questions, and I need answers. Now, if you'll please let me through, I need to go talk to Chiron." I walked past John, headed for the Big House, but I was stopped before I even got to the porch.

"Katie," John said, grabbing me by the elbow, "You have to go back home _now. _Bad things are going to happen, and you can't be here when they do. Please, Katie, I can't let you get hurt. You can't make me let this happen again."

"Well too bad, because I'm not leaving. You told me to stay at home, so I will. Camp Half-Blood is my home, John. I'm staying here." I said. I twisted my arm out of John's grip and walked up to the Big House, leaving John just standing there.

The second I stepped onto the porch, the door opened and I saw Chiron in the doorway.

"Katie," Chiron didn't look surprised that I was there, "What do you need?"

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything, but I really need to talk to you. You see... I've got a lot of questions that have been left unanswered." I said a little timidly. Chiron's presence was a little bit intimidating.

"I see. Perhaps you should come inside." Chiron stepped to the side and I went inside, following him to his office.

Once Chiron and I had some privacy, we sat down.

"Okay, there's a lot I've got to say," I said, "But I'll try to keep this short. There's just been so much going on, and it's all really confusing, but I thought you might know the answers." I told Chiron about being held captive in the house, the butterfly, the drawing on the back of John's note, everything. Chiron listened, and didn't say anything until I was done talking. "Do you know what's going on?" I asked.

"I do, but I'm afraid these questions are some I can't answer. Perhaps one of your parents could explain it all to you."

"What? Chiron, this isn't just one of those awkward preteen things you can talk to your parents about!" For a second I actually forgot that I wasn't just a normal preteen and that my dad was a god. Wow, aren't I smart? "I... I guess I'll try." I said, and left Chiron's office. When I walked out of the Big House, most of the campers had gone to the cabins. I did see one of my friends was still by the Big House, though.

"Jenna!" I shouted, running over to her, "You're here too?"

"Of course I am. John told me to come here as soon as I could, so I did." Jenna said matter-of-factly.

"That's weird... because he told _me _to stay away from here." it definitely seemed like John was trying to protect me from something. Whatever it was, I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

"Well," Jenna said, "maybe you should ask him why. Look, here he comes. Good luck, Supergirl." Jenna walked away, but I saw that, sure enough, John was walking in my direction. Honestly, I didn't want to talk to him then. I turned in the opposite direction and started to walk away.

"Katie, wait!" John shouted, "I just want to talk to you! If answers are what you want, I can- -" I cut him off.

"Save it for later, because I don't really feel like talking at the moment. And just so you know, I can take care of myself. I don't need you to protect me." I said, and left him where he was. I might have felt a little bad about what I said to John, but I was mad that he thought he needed to keep me safe from whatever he was hiding. It was about time I got some answers anyway, and I was ready to try talking to my dad.

When I walked into the Zeus cabin, Jason wasn't there. Nobody was there except me. Of course there was my dad's statue, which I was going to try talking to. It seemed silly, trying to talk to an eight-foot tall stone figure of a Greek god, but I guess it was worth a shot. "Hey Dad," I said, sitting on the cold marble floor in front of the statue, "I don't know if you're actually there, but I really need to talk to somebody who can answer my questions, and apparently you're the only one who's willing to tell me what's going on. Well, unless you're too busy. You know, being a god and all. I'm pretty desperate, but it seems like nobody is willing to tell me what I need to know. I guess you can't give me answers if I'm not asking questions, right? I should get to that, but you'll probably need to hear the whole story first." I poured out the entire story to the statue of my Zeus, from arriving at camp to talking to Chiron, but nothing happened.

"I guess I just feel like something's missing. Do you know what I mean?" the statue remained frozen. "Oh, who am I kidding? Of course you don't know how I feel. You're a freaking god! This is all pointless. I don't know why I ever thought you'd talk to me." I stood up and turned to leave, but before I could, there was a glowing light behind me, and I spun back around. There was my dad, a.k.a Zeus, god of lightning, lord of the sky, etc.

"Kathryn, I heard you needed to talk?" he said.

"Dad!" I shouted, and tackled him with a hug. Zeus tensed, and I stepped back. "Sorry. I shouldn't have done that." I was pleasantly surprised when my dad, with his pinstripe suit, beard, and lightning bolt, laughed. I had to admit, it was pretty strange.

"Come with me." Zeus held out his hand, which I took, and there was a flash of golden light. I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them, we were on Mt. Olympus. There was the throne room, with the seats of the different Olympian gods, but no one was there. It was just Zeus and me.

"Now, there's a lot to explain. You said earlier that you felt like there was something missing from your mind, am I correct?" I nodded, and Zeus continued, "I'm afraid what you felt was indeed true. You see, your memories of demigod life, the gods, those sort of things, were stolen."

"Stolen?" I asked. This was not what I had expected.

"By the memory goddess, Mnemosyne." My dad continued explaining what had happened. Apparently Jenna, Nico, John, and I had been on an enchanted island (a quest from our parents) and while there, we had angered Mnemosyne somehow. After getting off the island, Nico, Jenna, and I were carried off to a school run by a madwoman who was trying to keep demigods under her power. After escaping that place, Mnemosyne, with her troupe of monsters, attacked Camp Half Blood and stole my memories of anything that had to do with demigods or Greek mythology. It was a little confusing, but a few of the things Zeus said to me seemed to trigger old memories that had been hidden. Slowly, I started to remember everything. It was strange, having memories that you didn't know about before.

"I believe it's time for you to return to Camp Half-Blood." Zeus said, and I nodded. "Be careful, daughter." my dad said, and the scene vanished. I was back in the Zeus cabin.


	17. In This Chapter, Bad Stuff Happens

When I walked out of my cabin, all of the other campers were running around, grabbing armor, helmets, and weapons. I, of course, had no idea why. What was going on? I did what everyone else was doing though, and put on my armor. My sword, whatever it was called, was already with me, so I didn't have to worry about that. I was about to ask somebody what all of the commotion was about when I felt a lump in my pocket. Pulling the necklace from Zeus out of my pocket, I had forgotten all about it until that moment. I put the necklace on, tucking it under my shirt, and I felt a sort of power surge through my veins. Smiling a little, I just followed everyone until I spotted someone I knew.

"Jenna!" I shouted. My friend turned around. "What's going on?"

"Chiron just got an Iris Message from Mnemosyne, the goddess of memories." Jenna's face was dead serious, "She's going to attack the camp."

"Again?!" I exclaimed. Jenna looked at me, a little confused. "I got my memory back." I said. Jenna nodded like she understood. Then Jenna walked away and John came up to me.

"Katie, I'm really sorry. I know I've seemed protective lately, but you don't know what's about to happen. You have to get away from here, please, just listen to me!"

"Will you just stop trying to keep me safe? I'm not a weakling, John! I can take care of myself! And why do you keep telling me to get away because you know what's going to happen? Everybody knows that Mnemosyne's going to attack the camp, John! You don't need to hide that from me." I said. I was getting kind of mad at this guy.

"That's not it! You just don't understand, do you? I like you, Katie!" This was a little bit of a shock. "I care about you a lot, okay? I don't want you to get hurt, and I don't think I could live with myself if I let you fight and you died. I'm trying to keep you safe because I care about you, but you're obviously just going to keep pushing me away, so I don't know why I even try! I know you haven't gotten your powers mastered yet, but go ahead! Go fight, maybe you'll even get yourself killed! I told you to stay away, but I guess this is what you get when you don't listen. One of the sweetest girls in the world, sending herself off to battle." Ouch. That lightning thing was a pretty touchy subject, and his comment about that stung like a slap to the face. I was definitely mad now.

"Look. I happen to care about you too! Maybe I even had a crush on you before you went and called me a sweet little dainty thing that can't take care of herself and doesn't know how to handle a sword. I'm not as pathetic as you think I am, John! I've been trying not to push you away, but lately you've just been so protective that I can't- -"

"What?" John interrupted me, "So protective you can't breathe? Can't think? Just remember Katie, if I wasn't so aggravatingly protective, you would have died back in that fire." Then John walked away angrily, and I felt kind of bad, but I didn't care. He shouldn't have been so protective, right? Then again, he had a point about the fire... But I was really mad about what he said. When I looked down at my hands, they were sparking a bit. Thinking of something, I shot a tiny bolt of lightning at a nearby dandelion and it exploded. _Don't have my powers mastered, huh John? _I thought.

All of a sudden, tons of monsters and human warriors burst through the barrier. I didn't know how they got through, but they did. One thing was clear, though: This was going to be bloody. A group of campers that I immediately recognized as the Ares cabin surged forward, and before I knew it, I was fighting alongside them, and so was everyone else.

All of the campers were around me, fighting as hard as they could. It was tough, and I was tired, but we were battling for a reason. While Mnemosyne's group of monsters and human warriors were just an army, only fighting for a reward, we were so much more than that. The huge group of demigods around me was one huge family, and I was proud to be part of it. We were fighting for our friends, our family, and our home.

There was blood, dirt, and monster dust everywhere. Plenty of monsters had been killed, but the same thing had happened on our side. There were a bunch of demigods, either dead or nearly there, laying on the ground. After slashing the head off of a manticore, I spun around just in time to see one of Mnemosyne's soldiers stab a camper in the stomach, through a crack in the camper's armor. There was a crack of bones breaking and most likely the spear had broken the camper's ribs. The camper fell, and I heard another crack as he hit the ground. Then the warrior turned around. An evil grin spread across his face, exposing his yellow-ish brown teeth. Honestly, had this guy ever heard of dental hygiene?

"Well, looks like I've got another puny fish to fry." the warrior sneered.

"I don't think so," I said. I snapped my fingers, and a huge lightning bolt came down from the sky, electrocuting the warrior. "Bye bye!" I waved like a little kid, but the smile was wiped off of my face when the warrior fell to the ground and I saw who he had attacked before I killed him. There was Trey, laying on the ground and clutching his stomach.

"Trey!" I exclaimed and knelt down by him. His helmet had fallen off and was on the ground next to him. Whenever battling, I chose not to wear helmets. They were uncomfortable, and it was easier to see without a big metal hat on your head.

"Katie... what's happening?" Trey seemed dazed, but from the terror in his eyes, I could tell he knew what had happened, and that he was in immense pain.

"We've gotta get you inside," I said, "Oh, where's somebody who could help?" I muttered the last part to myself and looked around. Everyone was too wrapped up in not dying to see that Trey was badly injured. Then I spotted someone, and shouted their name.

"JOHN!" I shouted over the sounds of battle. John looked over in my direction, then saw what was going on. He stabbed a heckhound in the neck and it exploded, then John ran over.

"What happened?" John asked, obviously concerned.

"He got stabbed in the stomach. Now will you help? We need to get him inside!" I said. It might have been awkward because of what I said the last time John and I saw each other, but I didn't care. One of my friends was hurt, and if we didn't act quickly, he would die. Without saying anything, John lifted Trey up by the armpits and I held his legs. We moved as fast as we could without putting Trey in too much more pain, but it was difficult because of his stomach wound.

When John and I arrived at the Big House, Chiron was already there. I locked eyes with the centaur and he nodded, opening the door. We carried Trey into one of the hospital-like rooms that was there, and immediately one of the healers rushed over. John and I stood back, and the son of Apollo removed Trey's armor. His white t-shirt was soaked with blood, and I bit my lip to keep myself from gagging a little. The healer took off Trey's shirt, and I had to turn away because it was so gruesome. Of course I had seen bad injuries before, but this was too much. There was a gash near Trey's stomach, and I'll just say there was a ton of blood. Quite a bit of bone was exposed too. I just hoped that Trey wouldn't die.

"This is pretty bad," said the healer. If I remembered correctly, his name was Daniel, but I wasn't sure. "I'll try what I can, but it might be too late." Then the healer did whatever healers usually did for stuff like this, but I wasn't really watching. All of a sudden, Jenna ran in with Lilibeth and Nico behind her.

"Oh my gods, is he okay?" Lilibeth asked frantically when she saw Trey on the bed. The Apollo kid, whatever his name was, had gotten Trey to sort of lean on his elbow so he wasn't exactly sitting, but he wasn't laying down, either. Trey sipped a little bit of nectar and fell back down. He hadn't stopped bleeding completely, but it wasn't as bad as before. Lilibeth ran to the side of the bed as soon as Daniel (if that was really his name) walked away to help somebody else, and knelt on the floor next to Trey.

"Trey... oh my gods, Trey! How could this happen?" I could tell Lilibeth was crying, and I wanted to say something to comfort her, but I wasn't sure what I could say. What are you supposed to say when one of your friends is dying?

There were a ton of people in the Big House, running down the hallway, trying to save other injured people, but I ignored them. Nico stood in the back of the room like usual, but there was definitely a look of concern on his face. Jenna was at the side of the bed next to Lilibeth, rubbing the girl's back. I went to the opposite side of Trey's bed, looking at the pain in his eyes and the slight frown on his face, Lilibeth's many tears, and the blood that was around the injury. I just stood there, not sure what to say or what to do, but knowing that something bad was going to happen before the day ended.

"Lilibeth..." Trey whispered. I had to lean in a little to hear what he was saying.

"Trey." Lilibeth whispered back. There was a little catch in her voice, probably because she was sobbing. Or maybe there was something more going on that I didn't know about.

"Lilibeth... I've always..." Trey coughed, and it was obviously hard for him to keep talking, but he continued, "I've always... liked you..." This was a bit of a shock, but I kept listening.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Lilibeth asked. The pain in Trey's eyes was reflected in her's, and it was obvious that she liked him too.

"I've never... been brave enough..." Trey coughed again, and this time he winced. I wasn't sure if there was more pain in his stomach, or in his heart. Lilibeth was crying harder now, and I noticed that I was crying too. John stood next to me, and I glanced up at him. There was pain in John's eyes, but he was obviously trying not to show how upset he was.

"You've always been brave to me." Lilibeth whispered, and a single tear fell onto Trey's face. She wiped it away. Then John slipped his hand into mine. Everybody was so focused on Trey and Lilibeth, I doubted that anyone noticed. No one was saying a word, just standing around Trey's bed. "Don't leave me now." Lilibeth choked out.

"Good...bye...Lili—" Then Trey's face went blank. He let out one last breath, and his eyes glazed over. The room was silent for a moment. There wasn't even the noise of Lilibeth's heartbroken sobbing.

"He's gone." Nico said sullenly. We all nodded, because we already knew. Trey was dead, and there was no way we could bring him back.

JENNA'S POV

It really wasn't a surprise to me that someone I knew would get hurt. I mean it was bound to happen. Demigods fight monsters and we almost always get hurt. These things just happen. But what happened somewhere in the middle of the fight, really surprised me.

I mean, I remember hearing the crack of bones breaking, but I just thought it was a monster or something. I heard the lightning and I knew that Katie was just using her powers and that there were a few less enemies to fight. Then when I heard Katie yell for John, it really caught my attention. After stabbing some random monster in the stomach-I wasn't good with names of monsters okay-I turned around to see Katie and John pick another camper up off the ground. A knot formed in my stomach and I got the feeling I knew the person.

Then I saw his face for a split second. It was Trey. Panic rose up inside of me. Lilibeth was a couple yards away from me fighting a heckhound. She seemed to be struggling, so I ran towards her and ran the monster through with my sword.

It exploded in a cloud of dust. She just stood there blinking. "Trey's hurt." I said to her simply. A split second later I swear that I saw her heart break on her face. "What?" She practically screamed. I had no idea what had happened but I knew that we were going to find out.

I was so focused on that, that I hadn't remembered to look behind me. I heard a roar and I tensed. Even though I whipped around in half a second it would have been too late if someone else hadn't been watching. Just as the Manticore started to throw its spikes-which would have impaled me in the chest-someone ran it through and the monster exploded into dust, spikes and all.

"Pay attention!" Nico yelled at me. I was relieved for a moment but Trey popped back into my head. "Thanks for that, but Trey's hurt." Nico looked a little confused for a moment. "So...go check on him." He eventually said. I groaned while rolling my eyes. "Just come on." I grabbed his wrist and dragged him behind Lilibeth and I. He didn't protest and eventually I let go of him. My helmet also fell off somewhere along the way and Lilibeth at one point threw hers to the ground.

We ran into the Big House just to see a shirtless, heavily bleeding Trey who looked to be on his deathbed. His stomach was bleeding a ton and there was a few ribs showing from the hole in his stomach. The bones were probably broken, which explained the cracking noise that I had heard earlier.

I felt like I was about to throw up at the sight of him but I couldn't look away for some reason. Lilibeth, of course, was the most concerned out of all of us. "Oh my gods, is he okay?" There was some Apollo kid there who had been taking care of Trey and as soon as he stepped away from him Lilibeth was by Trey's side. She looked like she was about to start crying. Nico just stuck to the back of the room holding his helmet at his side-don't ask why I'm so focused on helmets.

"Trey...oh my gods, Trey. How could this happen?" She was crying at his bedside and no one else seemed to know how to try to comfort her so I got down on my knees next to her and started rubbing her back. John and Katie stood at the opposite side of the bed from us and nobody really said anything except for Lilibeth and Trey.

"Lilibeth..." Trey whispered to her.

"Trey." She whispered back. I could hear her voice cracking a bit. She was sobbing so I guess that was normal. I just continued to rub her back as the two of them spoke.

"I've...always..." Trey broke out in a coughing fit. I could hear him wheezing a bit so I could tell that he was having trouble breathing and that it was hard for him to talk. "I've always...liked you..."

I thought that over the course of that day that I couldn't be more shocked than before. I mean a memory goddess waged war on the camp and Trey was on his deathbed. Really, who would have seen that coming?

"Why didn't you tell me?" Lilibeth managed to ask through her tears. I could see that this was hurting her as much as it was hurting Trey. Apparently the feelings between them were mutual.

"I've never...been brave enough..." Trey coughed again and suddenly winced. It was probably from pain in his stomach, heart or both. I was thinking probably both at this point.

His words seemed to hurt Lilibeth with the equal amount of pain. "You've always been brave to me." She was whispering to him. A tear rolled off her cheek and onto Trey's face. She reached out with a shaking hand and wiped it off. Out of the corner of my eye I saw John and Katie holding hands. We were just having a romantic drama day apparently. It was probably going to be my turn next.

No one said a word making it-excuse my choice of words-dead silent in our little spot of the Big House. Lilibeth wiped another tear off of Trey's face. Then she managed to choke out, "Don't leave me now." Two more tears rolled out of her eyes and landed on the blood stained sheets.

"Good...bye...Lili-" He never finished her name. Within seconds, his last breath escaped from his lips and his face went blank. I could see the light slowly leaving his eyes as they glazed over. The thing was, there was actually a bit of joy mixed in with all the pain. This was probably one of the happiest moments of his life, even if it was the last two minutes of it. He had told Lilibeth his feelings for her, just so she could return them.

At that moment, in the silence-except for the sound of Lilibeth's sobbing-I swear that I heard my heart break. Not only because of the fact that one of my friends had just died but because now Lilibeth was going to be heartbroken for who knows how long. Somebody had just messed with the wrong group of friends.

"He's gone." Nico said gloomily. It was confirmed, Trey was dead. Lilibeth gasped and stopped crying for about ten seconds. I stopped rubbing her back and stood up. Her head suddenly hit the mattress that Trey's body laid on. She started to sob again. It was horrible to listen to. It was a heartbroken sob. She was screaming a little bit too.

A few tears escaped from my eyes as well but I tried to keep my best poker face I could. We had other things to focus on. Katie was crying a little bit and John was trying to comfort her. With basically everyone around me crying it was hard to keep myself together. I decided to just hang out at the back of the room with Nico.

I leaned back against the wall next to him and said nothing. Really I didn't even look at him. We stood next to each other for a few moments, silent in the room of death and sobbing. "You do know it's okay to cry, right?" Nico whispered to me after a while. I just nodded. The truth was I hated the way I looked when I cried. My face always got bright red and I never looked anything like "normal" with a frown on my face.

"I know." I muttered. He just looked at me for a moment then looked back at everyone else. I actually was a little bit tempted to break down and cry, right there in that moment. I had just lost one of my friends, so why shouldn't I? I didn't because of the way I looked when I did, and at least one of us had to stay strong for the others.

But I did feel like someone had just ripped my heart out.

After another minute or so Katie stopped crying and Lilibeth's sobs were a little less heartbroken. I didn't mean to sound like this was a minor problem but there were bigger ones that we had to face at the moment. "We should get going." I was talking to just Nico, Katie and John but Lilibeth looked at me as well. "I'm...not...leaving him!" Her head flopped back down after she said it. Her face was already smeared with his blood and it would probably look worse later.

Katie nodded of course. "We should just put his in the back of our minds for now and save the rest of the people who are still with us." I said with a hint of mourning in my voice. It was barely noticeable but it was there. Katie just nodded of course and John just looked me in the eyes. Nico started heading towards the door and turned around and looked back at us. "Are you coming or not?" No one said anything, we just followed him out the door.

Nico slid his helmet back on as he walked down the stairs. For a moment I didn't want to go back to the Hill. I was just plain sad and I didn't feel like fighting. But then I remembered that there was still a war going on.

I saw my helmet on the ground and I put it back on. My saddest was quickly becoming anger. There was someone on the Hill who had killed Trey and was probably maiming the others. A knot twisted in my stomach and my heart started pumping a little faster. That someone was going to die.

KATIE'S POV

After I had stopped my tears from flowing, I pulled my hand out of John's and stepped away from him. I could tell that Jenna had noticed that (best friends tend to notice everything), and my hand was getting really sweaty anyway. John glanced in my direction and our eyes met, but I looked away. I didn't want to get wrapped up in romance or anything at the moment.

"We should get going." Jenna said. Lilibeth looked at her with an expression that was somewhere between horror and disgust. I honestly couldn't tell which one it was.

"I'm not leaving him!" Lilibeth shouted and flopped back onto the bed. She was already covered in blood (Trey's, obviously) but apparently didn't care.

"We should just put this in the back of our minds for now and save the rest of the people who are still with us." Jenna said. There was a hint of sorrow in her voice, and I knew what she meant, but I couldn't help getting a little mad. There was no way I could fight after watching one of my friends die. It was just too hard.

I nodded anyway, like I agreed with her. What was I doing? I didn't want to fight, after all of this! Who would?

"Are you coming or not?" Nico asked. Jenna just nodded and followed him out the door. Then John left too, and I just decided to follow. I was behind everyone, and I hesitated for a second.

"Are you coming, Lilibeth?" I asked timidly.

"I think..." Lilibeth's voice was shaking a little, "I'm just going to stay here for a while. You know... Say goodbye." I nodded, knowing what she meant. I stepped away, but I lingered near the doorway for a second, watching Lilibeth. She stood up, planted a soft kiss on Trey's forehead, and pulled the bloody sheets over him, covering his entire body. Then she collapsed to the ground and started sobbing again.

Seeing all of those heartbreaking things caused my sadness to change into something else: anger. I was angry at the warrior, for killing Trey. I was angry at myself, for being so upset. I was angry at everyone, for not telling me about my memory loss sooner. But most of all, I was angry at Mnemosyne. She was the one who had started all of this, and I was going to be the one who finished it.


	18. The End

**Hi guys! This is the last chapter, and I'm really excited to write the sequel, even though you guys won't be able to read that for a while. The sequel will be called "Memories" and I can post it as soon as we fill in the gap between Finding and Fireflies. Unfortunately, I wrote Fireflies a little too early for the series and I know that things are a little confusing, but once all of the stories that come before Fireflies are written, I can write Memories. So please be patient, and hopefully it will be up before long. Thanks! I hope you like this chapter.**

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After leaving Lilibeth, I started running toward Thalia's tree. I didn't know why, but it felt like it was where I needed to be. When I got there, someone was waiting for me. Even if it was unclear whether it was a good thing or not, the person- -er, goddess- -leaning against my half-sister's pine tree was exactly who I was looking for. I drew my sword.

"Oh, is the little demigod girl going to try and fight? I can see you've been crying, dearie, so that obviously means you're one of the weaklings." Mnemosyne said.

"I'm not weakling." I spat.

"I understand. You're a big girl now, aren't you?" the memory goddess was talking to me like she would to a three-year-old, "Well if you're so strong, why don't you come and fight?" A huge sword suddenly materialized in Mnemosyne's hand. _Crap. __  
_

_"_I- -I'll fight, Mnemosyne. And while I'm at it, I might as well kill you too!" I ran forward, and tried to stab Mnemosyne in the arm, but she blocked me with her sword and pushed me back.

"I'm glad you're so enthusiastic, but you'll need a lot of good luck to kill a goddess, especially me. Oh wait, I forgot: you can't kill a goddess, can you?" _Crap. _I had forgotten about that.

"Just because I can't kill you doesn't mean I won't stop you." I said. I was very determined to bring the violence to an end. No one else was going to die if I could help it.

"Good luck trying. You can never stop me. You're just one little girl who can't even control her powers."

"I'm not that little, you know." I said. Mnemosyne and I fought for a few minutes, before she hit me in the ankle with her sword and I staggered. Her sword cut pretty deeply, and I was already bleeding. While I was distracted, she hit me in the back with the hilt of her sword. _Crap. _

"Oh, that's too bad," Mnemosyne coldly, "I was hoping you'd actually try before you gave up. You make a pathetic daughter of Zeus, don't you? Oh well. You won't need to be his daughter when I'm through with you. In fact, you won't remember your daddy at all, will you?" Now I was mad. My hands were flickering a bit, but I could feel myself getting a little weaker because of the cut on my ankle. I had started bleeding pretty heavily, but I ignored it.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, "I'll be a daughter of Zeus no matter what. Nothing will change that."

"Oh, really? Because if I'm remembering correctly, you didn't think that he even existed for a while. Who made that happen? Me. I might have failed last time, but this time I will succeed. You won't remember anything of this life when I'm done." I tried to stand up, but Mnemosyne kicked me back down, knocking the breath out of me. Then Mnemosyne pressed her hand against my forehead, and its coldness started spreading through my body, sending shivers down my spine.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tall, redheaded boy running toward us. "Katie! NO!" he shouted. Without even looking away from me, Mnemosyne snapped her fingers and a boundary popped up in front of John, knocking him backward. "You couldn't stop me, and he won't be able to either. Nothing can." The coldness of Mnemosyne's hand had spread completely through my body, and I was shivering slightly. The corners of my vision were starting to fade, too. Then I heard a ripping noise, and discovered that Mnemosyne's barrier had dissolved. She was still holding her hand against my forehead, and I felt like she was taking something out of my mind. Slowly, the world started to seem more and more distant.

By this time, John had gotten to us, but he was standing two feet away, a look of horror frozen on his face. Then Mnemosyne took her hand off of my forehead, and I gasped slightly. There was a dull pain all over me, but I couldn't tell what was hurting the most. The memory goddess stood up and stepped back.

"There. Now maybe you can see your little boyfriend one last time before you forget all about him." John stumbled forward suddenly and fell to the ground next to me.

"Katie, you can't let her do this! You've got to get up, you have to keep your memories! Oh gods, why wouldn't you just listen?" There were tears in John's eyes. "Just hold on. Please, just hold on for me." John's face was becoming blurry, and the only thing I could see clearly were his brown eyes staring into mine.

"John..." I whispered. It was all I had the strength to say. I was too weak to get up, too weak to fight. My eyelids were getting heavy, and then I blacked out. Everything was gone.


End file.
